


Sensible

by jailor



Series: Dogcopter Dream Diary [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Canon Compliant, Don't Have to Know Canon, Escapism, Gen, Homeworld (Steven Universe), Left Field, Pearl-centric (Steven Universe), Pining, Pre-Canon, Revolution, Running Away, Secret Identity, Self-Discovery, Swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jailor/pseuds/jailor
Summary: A new pearl is custom-ordered and delivered to Pink.
Relationships: Pearl & Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Series: Dogcopter Dream Diary [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774822
Comments: 64
Kudos: 120





	1. SERVANT

The pearl, being sensible, does exactly what she’s supposed to do. She takes form in Pink Diamond’s chambers and eagerly introduces herself to her Diamond. When a gem is made, she knows precisely what for, and how to perform her purpose. The placement of her gem as suspended within her physical form reflects her temperament, as does the light of the Diamond she’s made from. Pearls are made in White Diamond’s perfect image, and this pearl, intended for Pink Diamond, has White Diamond’s perfect gem placement to boot. She’s been given to Pink Diamond, and her purpose is to serve Pink Diamond; to make Pink Diamond happy.

She runs gem-first into the unsolvable problem of her own existence as a result. Pink Diamond wants nothing to do with the pearl from the moment she first takes form, and Pink Diamond is never happy. There’s no need for a gem without a use, and no use for an unwanted pearl. If this doesn’t change, there’s no reason for her to exist. No reason for her to have been made in the first place. From the outset, her creation doesn’t make any sense, and yet White Diamond’s judgment is perfect, and so it must. The pearl, therefore, tries to make sense of it.

The pearl does everything right, and every thing she does is wrong. She’s made to know a pearl’s sweet song and delicate dance and how to apply them. Her performance is designed to entertain any gem a pearl may be given to. When Pink Diamond’s lost to one of her brooding spells, turned away from pearl and balcony both and twisted in on herself, the pearl watches in restless stasis. 

She thinks, perhaps a song. The silence shatters with her first melodious croon. Pink Diamond bolts upright as though struck by a tuning fork, and the pearl loses her perfect composure for a moment, voice falling to pieces in the air around them. Pink Diamond urges the pearl be quiet, and the pearl obeys. It doesn’t happen again.

If singing won’t do, perhaps a dance; but at the pearl’s first attempt, Pink Diamond waves her down from toe-tip with a frantic flail, and the pearl settles back into nothing. Unmoving, she tries praising Pink Diamond, a short-lived aggrandizement of her brilliance, her luster, and impeccable radiance. Pink Diamond tells her to stop. The pearl stops. All she’s done, it seems, is stop.

Sometimes Pink Diamond brings her along for extraction, and sometimes the pearl remains in Pink Diamond’s room. She stands where Pink Diamond has left her, beaming at the blank wall, feet pressed parallel. Pink Diamond’s curtain stirs here and again, and light spills through the space. It’s no different from when Pink Diamond is present, but somehow the room feels brighter when empty. Enchanted by the shape of starlight traveling the floor, the pearl looks out the window, once, and sees the distant geometry of White Diamond’s head. She returns to smiling at Pink Diamond’s closed door.

When it opens, the pearl rushes to greet her Diamond with forearms crossed. Pink Diamond looks at her. It’s the first time the pearl has made eye contact since her introduction, as they’re not often face-to-face. Pink Diamond’s are pink, diamond-like pupils punched through the surface, wide and darting around the pearl. The pearl brightens her expression and straightens her back. Pink Diamond’s scowl lands like a blow. She looks away. The pearl’s smile falters.

Pink Diamond grasps the pearl by the wrists, immovably delicate, and tugs her hands apart. “...stop doing that.” She’s sort of smiling as she releases her grip on the pearl, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, still averted. It’s not really directed at the pearl, she doesn’t think, but it’s the first scrap of success the pearl has seen in her lifetime of fruitless self-improvement. 

The pearl hurries to comply. _Stop_ is a command she’s received more than any other, and the pearl adds _Diamond salute_ to the growing list of behaviors to conceal in Pink Diamond‘s presence. She folds her hands together instead. “Did you have a nice extraction, my Diamond?” Pink Diamond looks as though she’s been choked. She doesn’t answer.

Pink Diamond doesn’t look at her again for some time, and the pearl can’t help but turn that expression over in the privacy of her mind. It makes no sense. The pearl is behaving exactly as she should, and yet Pink Diamond is a Diamond, so _her_ judgment is foolproof by design. The pearl’s inadequacy is not for lack of effort or purpose. She has no other way to be, after all. Perhaps the problem is not her information, but its execution. Though all gems are made knowing what they’re for, the pearl is already running up against the limits of her understanding. Maybe she’s missing something. She‘ll have to think of another approach.

Pink Diamond continues to brood.

At the extraction chamber, the pearl comes in contact with the other Diamonds’ pearls. While Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond converse over Pink Diamond’s bowed head, emerging from the water, their three pearls wait in line along the deck downstairs. The other two pearls, like Pink Diamond, won’t look at the pearl. They wait. The pearl wonders if their Diamonds take to song and dance, or gestures of devotion, but they don’t speak, so neither does she. One day the Diamonds are deep in conversation on the opposite end of their chamber, and she finally meets them. The other Diamonds’ pearls break posture and peer at her.

“So you’re still here,” is the first thing Yellow Diamond’s pearl whispers to her, and the pearl just nods, staring at them both.

“How are you feeling?” Blue Diamond’s pearl asks.

This, the pearl knows the answer to. “My feelings are irrelevant,” she says.

This pleases Yellow Diamond’s pearl. “She’s sensible,” she says to Blue Diamond’s. “That’s promising.”

Blue Diamond’s pearl just smiles. The pearl can’t see her eyes beyond the fringe of her hair. She becomes aware of her own dullness in the face of her two perfectly customized peers.

“You can call me Blue,” says Blue Diamond’s pearl. “She’s Yellow.”

“Like the Diamonds?” The pearl says before her sense has caught up with her voice, and then pinches her mouth shut. Yellow recoils in disgust at the audacious comparison, and the pearl knows she has just ruined her good first impression. 

Blue only nods. “I suppose.”

They don’t call her anything. The pearl has enough sense to imagine the next logical step, but doesn’t dare suggest it. She may have been given to Pink Diamond, but she still isn’t Pink Diamond’s pearl.

Extraction ends. They return to Pink Diamond’s chambers. 

The next gem she meets is Pink Diamond’s Spinel. The pearl accompanies Pink Diamond to her garden, where Pink Diamond and Spinel may play. The other gem is impertinent and inseparable from Pink Diamond, and the pearl feels something new at the sight of Pink Diamond beaming by the flowers. Spinel’s elastic appendages are coiled about Pink Diamond’s middle and Pink Diamond is shaking with delight. Spinel tells a joke. Pink Diamond laughs. It looks so easy. The pearl despairs.

Like extraction, it’s not every time that Pink Diamond brings her on these visits, and sometimes the pearl is left alone for long enough to watch the starlight reach the curtain’s opposite edge.

The pearl is waiting in her spot by the balcony when Pink Diamond storms in from an excursion, steaming with fury in place of her usual sadness. The pearl isn’t permitted to sing or dance or praise her Diamond’s radiance, so she settles for a place at Pink Diamond’s side, smiling and attentive, trying to communicate cheer without defying any of Pink Diamond’s rules.

Pink Diamond smashes a hole in the wall and leaves. She’s done it once before, though just the once. The pebbles had sealed it in short order that time; the pearl watched. Pink Diamond’s room contains a passel of pebbles, each no larger than the pearl’s gem. Like all gems, pebbles serve the Diamonds, in their own manner. They’re hidden from sight within the walls, and only emerge when required to fulfill Pink Diamond’s requests or patch damage to the architecture. The pearl catches an occasional glimpse of their forms clinging to the undercarriage of some structural extrusion, but has never seen one in full.

The room contains these three types of gems: Diamond, pebble, pearl. Each behaves as though the others aren’t there. The pearl still doesn’t know what to make of it. When they’re alone, if the pebbles aren’t away, she catches little whispers all around her.

Now the pearl watches the dent instead of the curtain’s trail, as it’s something new. It’s full of shadow. The pebbles haven’t got to it yet. They work instantly in Pink Diamond’s presence, but sometimes they slip away when Pink Diamond is gone, and it’s possible they won’t be back until word travels of her reapproach.

The pearl is struck by a thought: she’s watched the pebbles repair. She could do it herself. She’s no good at her own purpose, but maybe she can make up for it by finding another way to lift Pink Diamond’s mood.

The pearl is no pebble, and it’s her first time trying, but after searching about the edges of the panel for a release her narrow fingers find the gaps. Pushing against the wall with her slipper for leverage, the pearl tugs at it, and just as the thing creaks out of place Pink Diamond walks back into the room.

They eye one another. The pearl jumps away from the broken surface, wide-eyed and mouth shut, fearing the worst. 

“I forgot to tell you; Blue moved our extraction up,” Pink Diamond says. “Let’s go.”

The pearl follows.

They pass more time in silence in the room. Pink Diamond continues to speak to her in trickles; a line about one of the other Diamonds, something she’d seen in her garden. Mostly she talks about starting a colony. The other Diamonds don’t think she’s ready, but Pink Diamond would like nothing more than to assume her rightful place beside them. The pearl does her best to respond in a pleasing manner. Pink Diamond inevitably dwindles back into silence. When leaving, she takes the pearl along for the most part.

The next time Pink Diamond visits the garden, she leaves the pearl behind at the warp. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I won’t be long.”

Privately, the pearl is relieved not to bear witness to Spinel and Pink Diamond’s recreation. She waits where she’s supposed to.

Not many gems pass by the warp, but it’s more than the pearl’s seen yet. She recognizes them all from the knowledge she’s made with. It’s still something else to see in person. Towering guard gems thrice her size lumber by and the sight of sleek water wings glittering at an Aquamarine’s back is beyond compare. A group of Blue Diamond’s Amethyst guards pause before taking the warp to their destination and get cheeky with the pearl instead.

“Hello,” says an Amethyst guard.

The pearl says nothing. She’s not here for _them_.

“Who do you belong to?” one says.

“Pink Diamond,” says the pearl automatically. She’s never said it aloud before. It feels like a fib. The guards certainly react that way.

“Yeah, right,” one says, gem on the side of her head. She flashes the pearl a crooked smile, which the pearl ignores.

One of the others squints at the pearl, leaning rather too close. The pearl can see her own reflection in the Amethyst’s eye gem, imperfectly placid. “That’s a default, right?”

“It’s the truth,” the pearl insists, turning up her nose at their rudeness. 

“Then why aren’t you pink?” asks another. The pearl has no answer for that.

Pink Diamond visits the garden again, but she doesn’t always leave the pearl behind. The pearl hasn’t made up her mind about which option she likes less, not that it particularly matters, but she’s still leaning in favor of Spinel’s unbearable charm. 

At least their games always end.

“I guess it’s time to go. Hey, Pearl,” Pink Diamond says, turning around. It’s the first time she’s addressed the pearl directly in such a manner. She says it like a name. Her voice is warm. The pearl has never once seen Pink Diamond smile at her like this, let alone heard it. She feels, for a moment, overwhelmingly real.

“Yes, my diamond?” Pearl says. She puts every ounce of unexpected purpose into the words, clasping her hands together so as not to salute.

Pink Diamond turns to her, still smiling, and makes eye contact once more. Pearl sees an instant of light before Pink Diamond wilts. The grand feeling that filled her chest so abruptly deflates alongside Pink Diamond’s fleeting joy. She’s done it again. What, she doesn’t know - everything about her should have been perfect, and she’s tried so very hard to execute her purpose - but Pink Diamond is unhappy once more, and once more Pearl is the cause.

Pink Diamond’s next meeting with Blue and Yellow Diamonds takes place in Yellow Diamond’s study.

“About Spinel,” Pink Diamond says, only for Blue Diamond to cut her off.

“Isn’t she just flawless?”

“She’s very,” Pink Diamond glances at Pearl, and Pearl sees the edge of her mouth twitch, “entertaining.”

Yellow Diamond laughs, loud enough to jar the pearls. “Ha- _ha_! Entertaining! Of course she is. Perfect for you.” 

A shadow crosses Pink Diamond’s features. Thankfully, Pearl no longer has her attention. “Thanks, Yellow. Blue. She’s just what she’s supposed to be.”

“She’s the first real gem we’ve had made for you, isn’t she?” Blue Diamond says. “Stars only know why it’s taken so long.” Pink Diamond looks at Pearl again, but says nothing.

Blue Diamond continues. “Speaking of. We’ve read your message, Pink.”

“Ah, yes,” says Yellow Diamond. 

Pink Diamond cheers at last. “Oh? What do you think?”

“I think this conversation calls for a little more privacy,” says Blue Diamond. “That will be all, Pearl.”

”You too,” says Yellow Diamond to her own. Both pearls bow to their Diamonds and exit Yellow Diamond’s room.

Pearl looks to Pink Diamond, who inclines her chin just a fraction, glancing to the others. “Go on. I’ll be right out.”

With that, they are inexplicably barred from the Diamonds’ concursion. Pearl squints at the other two. They haven’t moved, so she doesn’t either. She’s only spoken with the other pearls the once, when they’d introduced themselves, and never all alone like this. Pearl has never been brought along only to retroactively become left behind. She supposes she’ll follow their lead until she has a sense of the situation. Blue catches her staring.

“Go on, you can ask.”

Pearl permits herself the truth. “Why are we out here?”

“Didn’t you hear them?” says Yellow.

“The bit about making real gems?”

“Yes, actually,” says Blue. It‘s hard to tell, but Pearl thinks she looks a bit surprised.

“After that. The bit about privacy,” Yellow replies.

Pearl doesn’t want to admit that her inherent information has once again proven inadequate. She falls back on what little she does understand. “Well, I know I’m meant to accompany Pink Diamond today. Now I’m told to stay out here. You have to admit it’s unexpected.” Why bring her along in the first place?

“‘It’s unexpected’, she says,” Yellow scoffs. “Straight out of her shell.“

“You know that the Diamonds prefer to speak alone sometimes,” says Blue. “Without even their pearls.”

That doesn’t seem right, but then again, a reminder of her presence has never failed to make Pink Diamond miserable. Maybe she doesn’t want to be around other gems. It‘s the first answer Pearl has ever received, the first personal curiosity she’s spoken aloud instead of combing through data, and the sheer momentum of being responded to pushes another straight out of her head. “What do you mean by ‘yes, actually’?”

Yellow casts Blue a look. Blue offers her a fractional shrug in return. She addresses Pearl. “You know why pearls are made differently from other gems, right?”

“What? How are we made?” Pearl says.

Blue’s hands fly to her mouth.

Pearl jumps in place. She glances from Blue to Yellow in horror, but Yellow’s frown hasn’t budged. She’s tapping her foot as though simply waiting for Blue to catch up in the hallway. Blue’s fingers dig into her cheek.

“What’s happening to her?” says Pearl. “Should we do something?”

“Don’t worry, this is normal,” says Yellow. “She wasn’t thinking. You must remember to come at it sideways, Blue.”

“Please excuse me,” Blue says when she finally pries each digit away from her face.

“Are you alright?” Pearl says.

“She’s fine,” says Yellow.

“That’s what a secret looks like,” Blue says. “You’ll have a few of your own, soon enough.”

Pearl hopes not. It had looked unpleasant, although brief. Blue has a knuckle pressed to her lip now, deep in thought.

“This one’s not all that secret, but this is inconvenient for you and I. Big picture, then,” says Yellow. “Just lead her back to the Reef. Let her put it together.”

“The Reef?” Pearl says, but Yellow shakes her head and refuses to expound.

“I’m not so foolish as to play these games, if no one’s told you anything yet,” she says. “Let her try to explain it if she wants.”

Pearl can hear Yellow Diamond in conversation on the other side of the door. “Maybe this can wait,” she says, though in truth she wants Blue to continue. She had been made with just the right gem placement for thinking, and the notion of secrets is something new to think about, as is this strange fact about pearls. She can probably find the information just as easily in Pink Diamond’s files somewhere. She already knows the process by which many gems - useful ones, at least - are made. Analyzing her own creation might enable Pearl to finally decipher and correct her perpetual misbehavior, and thereby ensure her continued existence. Or at least it might enable her to stop anticipating the end of it.

“Big picture...” Blue taps her chin. “Colonies. Your Diamond would like one of her own very badly. Do you know anything about that process yet?”

Does she know anything? To lead a colony is the purpose of a Diamond and one of the few subjects Pink Diamond has shown even a scrap of interest in. Naturally, Pearl has reviewed as much as she can of the logistics involved. She’s pieced together whatever there is of Blue and Yellow’s dominion among the scattered documentation Pink Diamond has access to. Even if it would be hazardously bold to claim so aloud, at present, she probably knows more about how to run a colony than the diamond herself.

“I do!” Pearl says.

“Wonderful. Tell me.”

Pearl hesitates, unsure by what metric her knowledge will be measured. “Should I say it to you step-by-step? O-or a particular process? Selection, warp installation, kindergarten development-”

“Let’s skip the first,” says Blue. “After choosing a planet, who’s the most valuable gem of a new colony? Say for the first five or so centuries. Disregard whoever’s in charge, of course.”

“This is going to take forever,” Yellow groans.

Pearl stares at her hands, mentally revisiting inventory reports. “A sapphire, perhaps?”

“‘Most valuable’, not highest-ranking.”

“What common gem could possibly be of comparable value to a sapphire?”

Yellow interjects. For someone who claims to stay out of this, she hasn’t stopped sticking her nose in. “They’re worthless to new colonies. A sapphire’s ability is only useful when she’s around other gems.“

Pearl frowns, but Blue nods her on. “You know this. Think about it. She’s usually the first they send once a location is deemed viable. The only gem capable of traversing galaxies in a timely manner without use of the warp.”

Ah. “A lapis lazuli,” says Pearl. “Quite powerful, and costly to replace.”

“Good job. What does a lapis do?”

“Terraforms, of course,” Pearl says, repeating words all gems are made with. “That’s also why they’re designed to be sent out ahead. I’m afraid I don’t understand where you’re going with this. Or why you have to tell it to me in riddles. What does a lapis lazuli have to do with gem production?”

Blue just grins at her. “Why does a lapis terraform?”

“That’s what it’s made for,” she says. Obviously. Gems only exist to fill a purpose. A carefully-repressed edge leaks into her tone at last. The other pearl is as calm as the sea.

Yellow peeks at the doors, still shut. “I know you want to avoid setting your secrets off again, Blue, but you should either try and get her to the point immediately or leave it for now.”

“Yes, but how does she do it?” presses Blue.

“Lapis lazuli gems have the power to manipulate water,” Pearl says, knowledge sharp, patience thin. “It’s what makes them the most efficient tool for establishing colonies.”

“And why they’re so costly. You’re very close,” Blue says. “What does the invention of a water-wielding terraformer say about planets selected for colonization?”

“They’ve... got water?” Pearl says.

“Blue,” warns Yellow. This time Blue, too, glances back in the direction of Yellow Diamond’s chambers.

“Two more, and then I think your Diamond will be done for the day. First: you know what a completed colony should look like?”

“Yes, of course,” Pearl says, imagining the hologram she’d provided Pink Diamond in their quarters just before this meeting. “Efficient extraction of all available resources. When the site can no longer be of use in creating new gems, where possible it continues to serve as an extension of the empire’s network to further future development.”

“There’s the answer to your question. Here’s the last of mine,” Blue says. “Why does White Diamond have a pearl?”

“Blue.”

The doors slide open behind them and all three pearls stop talking. Blue and Yellow quietly resume their positions along the wall, Pearl just a half-step behind. Pink Diamond storms out alone, trailing the exasperated exclamations of the other Diamonds. Pearl hastens to assume her proper place, silent once more.

“See you soon,” whispers Blue.


	2. STEWARD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl puts on a ball.

Today Pink Diamond visits the garden. A gallery has inconveniently collapsed beneath their usual warp and so Pink Diamond’s Amethyst guard steers the two of them down a new hallway. Pink Diamond leaves Pearl behind in the company of several wide-eyed walls and one drowsy ornamental statue.

The walls stare at Pearl and murmur between themselves, which she pointedly ignores, choosing instead to run Blue’s questions over in her head as she has ever since their conversation. She’s been imagining things for Pink Diamond increasingly often of late. The diamond is as dull and morose as ever, for the most part, but there’s always a small chance she’ll brighten up at the thought of assuming her true duty, so Pearl applies herself. Pearl has continued to comb through what of the empire’s cartography and record may procure in Pink Diamond’s name. It hasn’t taken her long to find the Reef Yellow had alluded to: a structure bridging the ocean’s surface on a distant world. _That_ is where pearls are made. Pearl recognizes the shell on sight, though it doesn’t jog any memories. She’s no closer to fishing out the details of the process, or how it differs from the creation of other gems, though not for lack of trying. Yellow Diamond has hundreds of colonies and by far the most extensive records on gem production. She’s also provided Pink Diamond access, so Pearl has at her disposal nearly all the empire’s information on the subject. Yellow Diamond simply doesn’t make pearls.

Pink Diamond returns early from her trip to the garden. She impatiently urges Pearl and her guard back to her room. The walls whisper in their wake like pebbles. Pearl’s never seen Pink Diamond so eager to retire; it’s usually the other way around. Her Diamond has a spring in her step as they make their way back from the warp. Pearl can plainly see Pink Diamond biting her tongue to hold her strangeness at bay. Once the wall to Pink Diamond’s chamber shuts, Pink Diamond jumps in the air with a cry of victory. Pearl can only smile.

“Finally!” Pink Diamond says. “I’ve got it!”

“Congratulations, my diamond!” Pearl cheers. Pink Diamond’s grin falters, taking Pearl’s with it.

“Thanks,” Pink Diamond says. She sort-of looks at Pearl. Pearl doesn’t twitch. “I mean, thank you, Pearl,” Pink Diamond repeats, sort-of looking away. 

“Of course, my diamond,” Pearl says, putting her smile back on. She follows Pink Diamond onto the balcony, where her diamond presses both hands against the railing and frowns across Homeworld’s capitol at the head.

“My own colony. At last. Blue and Yellow told me in the garden,” Pink Diamond mutters to herself. “It’ll mean double the extraction baths until my injectors go out, at least. Yellow will be on my back the whole way, but, Pearl – they _listened_ to me! My own colony! I only hope...”

Pearl watches Pink Diamond watch White Diamond’s head.

“Do you think I can really pull it off?” Pink Diamond asks. “Being a diamond?”

“Of course I do, my diamond,” says Pearl. “It’s what you are.”

Blue Diamond’s chime sounds before Pink Diamond can reply. The door opens to Blue, whose hands make a rhombus of her torso. She bows. 

“Pink Diamond,” Blue addresses the floor panels. “My diamond requests your presence.”

Pearl and her diamond follow Blue to the extraction chamber, at which point Pink Diamond waves them off and takes the stairs. The water scatters its reflection up the lattice of the room’s architecture. Blue nods to Pearl but doesn’t speak. There’s the quiet splash of Pink Diamond slipping in at the edge of the pool.

“Blue!” Pearl hears Pink Diamond exclaim. Blue Diamond returns her greeting.

Yellow and her diamond join them not long after. Pink Diamond’s excitement, though tempered, puts her fellows in a good mood, and soon the three of them are discussing Pink Diamond’s plans, their pearls unattended.

“Nice to see you again,” Blue says to Pearl.

“It’s good to know you’re still around,” says Yellow, with her nose in the air. “It is the same you, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t been replaced,” Pearl says. Not yet.

“Yellow.”

“What? Best not to assume.”

“I found out about the Reef,” Pearl says, bludgeoning the subject away from her own ephemerality. “It’s where pearls are made! It appears to be suspended underwater. That’s what you meant by the lapis?”

“Good job,” says Blue.

“The Reef also serves as a luxury boutique and a center for refurbishment and repair,” says Yellow.

“How lovely!” Pearl says cheerfully.

“How did you find out?” Blue asks her.

Blue and Pink Diamond are conversing up the stairs. Pearl hears another splash. “My diamond has been preparing to lead her own colony,” she says. “Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond generously permit Pink Diamond access to their archives. I found a hologram of the Reef in there.”

“Clever,” says Blue. Pearl perks with satisfaction.

“Careful,” warns Yellow.

“It’s not breaking any rules,” Pearl says. 

Yellow frowns at her.

Frustrated at Yellow’s needling but not wanting to show it, Pearl gestures in closemouthed articulation of her logic. “Why shouldn’t I learn all there is to know about gem expansion? Better to serve my diamond’s ambitions, isn’t it? The answer to your little mystery only - well, it also happened to be there. By chance.”

She doesn’t mention days already spent in obsessive review; after all, those logs also contain her only hope of making Pink Diamond happy. The image manifests in her mind of Pink Diamond with the same expression as Pearl, that morning, defending some argument of her own against invisible Blue and Yellow Diamonds. Of course, Pearl’s is based in straightforward sense, not figment and feeling. 

Yellow blinks in surprise; Blue giggles into her fist.

“Unless you think I should?” Pearl says brightly.

“Of course not,” says Yellow. “Don’t break the rules! I only told you to be careful.”

“I‘m performing my purpose,” says Pearl. 

“You’re doing a lovely job,” says Blue.

“Hrmm.” But it is pleasant to hear her effort acknowledged, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Yellow sighs in a rare expression of slack posture, hanging her head. “As long as all this curiosity doesn’t make you too bold. That’s how Pink Diamond’s last-“

“A _ball?_ ” Pearl hears Pink Diamond say loudly from the pool. Yellow’s mouth snaps shut. “Now? Do I really have time for that?”

“It’s your first colony, Pink!” says Yellow Diamond. 

“Wouldn’t you like to celebrate?” Blue Diamond says. “You used to love throwing balls.”

“I guess,” says Pink Diamond. “All right. Fine. Let’s throw a ball. To - commemorate my first colony.”

Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond express their approval. Pearl notices Yellow looking her over.

“What‘s wrong?” she says.

“Nothing,” Yellow says. “I was only thinking, I suspect she’s going to have you up in front of the whole court looking like _that_. My Diamond will be beside herself about it.”

“Does it really matter?” Blue muses, serene.

“I suppose not,” says Yellow. She’s still frowning at Pearl’s skirts. Pearl doesn’t know what Yellow expects _Pearl_ to do about her appearance, but it grates all the same.

Preparing Pink Diamond’s ball and new colony simultaneously is like leading a double life. Never in her brief duration has Pearl been so busy. She switches between the two with respect to Pink Diamond’s attention. She’s got to organize or delegate timing, roster, order of entry, music, diamond presentation, lighting, cleaning, fealty, choreography...for Pearl, whose purpose has so far amounted to standing around and occasionally holding something, it’s more than she’s ever had to do. The other diamonds’ pearls are loaned for a short time to aid her, and Pearl frantically soaks up what guidance they have to offer. In a moment of overwhelm she imagines herself confusing Pink Diamond’s guest list for Kindergarten inventory and embarrassing her Diamond in front of a group of muddy elites. It’s not more than Pearl can handle, of course! But it is an adjustment, after an existence spent measuring the quality of her service in terms of remaining silent and still and almost invisible so as not to unsettle her diamond. The matter of the colony, Pink Diamond directs most of her energy to. The other Diamonds involve themselves in her affairs more than she’d like, and Pink Diamond finds herself with less and less say over her own planet’s design. Somehow, it doesn’t lighten Pearl’s workload. Pearl has to keep reminding Pink Diamond about the ball as preparations proceed at a Sapphire’s pace. 

In a twist of bitter irony, the greatest obstacle to Pearl’s efficient execution of her purpose is the standard form Pink Diamond leaves her in. It’s never a given that gems will believe Pearl is Pink’s the first time she tells them, and the trouble of either convincing one of these strangers of the truth or seeking out another solution inevitably wastes precious passage of Pearl’s newly-limited time. Pearl sidesteps any third party she reasonably can. Luckily, gems know their purposes and are well-practiced in them; as Pearl finally nails down gem selection and general logistics, the ball more or less assembles itself overnight. As is traditional, the curtain will be lifted by a lustrous aquamarine flock. The four such gems approved for Pink’s use at a ball are reachable by electronic message, but Pearl needs to escape from the room for a moment and it will be quicker to skip over and inform them in person. Pink Diamond recently received word that Blue Diamond sees fit to oversee Pink‘s first Kindergarten, and has been coiled in her rage in the room ever since.

The first two aquamarines are indisposed, so Pearl weighs her options. She takes the chance of a moment’s delay. Pearl locates the door behind which her selected gems work and loiters by a pair of other pearls already waiting. Her neighbors are bright blue and modestly ornamented, the nacreous sheen of their frills catching starlight. One has her pearl on her hip, the other, the back of a hand.

Shortly after assuming a place in line, Pearl is swept into her most bizarre new experience yet. A sapphire with a gem on the front of her head emerges from the door they’re stationed outside, looks right at Pearl, and orders her to follow. She walks off in the opposite direction.

“Excuse me?” says Pearl. She hears someone in the architecture gasp.

“Come now, Pearl,” the sapphire calls back again, but doesn’t slow her step. The other pearls look at her like she’s being ridiculous, so Pearl straightens up and stumbles after the other, just like she would Pink Diamond. She feels cast to a new role without warning. She doesn’t know whether this is maybe a pearl thing she hasn’t come in contact with yet - like the secrets - or what.

“Forgive me, my...your clarity?” Pearl says. She squeezes her own fist, then wonders if maybe she should - Pearl raises her arms to perform a standard salute, the old gesture wooden and unfamiliar - but the sapphire with the forehead gem pays her no attention whatsoever, and Pearl lets her hands fall awkwardly back to her sides. She trots at the sapphire’s heel down a glimmering hallway of elite-class gems, staring at living art and dressed stone facings, wondering how best to politely extract herself from this unusual situation and get back to corralling aquamarines for the ball like she should.

The sapphire stops when they’ve crossed from sinus into spire, ascending the gentle waves of a staircase. Pearl’s further from her errand with every step. “Here we are,” says the sapphire. They’re in front of another door. The bas-relief blinks down at them from her perch.

“Did you need help with something?” Pearl ventures. “Erm, my sapphire.”

“Oh Pearl,” the sapphire says with a fond chuckle, like they’ve spoken a thousand times before. “Even bound as we are to our parts in fate’s inevitable advancement, you find your little ways to surprise.” 

Pearl crinkles her nose. Such familiarity from a stranger is disquieting, not to mention the tone. Never in ten thousand years would Pink Diamond speak to her like that, and she’s talked at Pearl more than anybody else. She tries to imagine from the sapphire’s words what sort of pearl she thinks she’s addressing. “Pleasure to be of service,” Pearl settles for.

“I’ll be just one moment, or more precisely,” the sapphire says, and provides Pearl an estimate down to the zepto. It’s well after she’s due to be back in Pink Diamond’s chambers.

“I don’t think-“ Pearl begins, but the sapphire has already closed the door.

She lingers out of reluctance to risk another misstep, although Pearl has no intention of waiting around for the sapphire to finish her meeting. The interaction echoes in her gem. Just as she’s made up her mind to go back down to the other hallway, Pearl hears the panicked patter of soft flats turning out of the stairwell. It’s another pearl. She’s caught up to Pearl in moments, staring wide-eyed into Pearl’s.

The pearl is in default uniform like Pearl with a matching gem on her forehead to boot, although her arms have been accessorized with a pair of white gloves. Pearl has never had occasion to see her self reflected. Even Yellow, with an identical face and build, is unique. This pearl’s appearance is like a dissonant chord struck against her gem.

“Have you seen a sapphire go in? I’d slipped away from my gem downstairs and didn’t make it back in time.”

_What reason would you have to leave in the first place?_ Pearl thinks, irritated that this pearl’s irresponsibility has become her problem. But she really wants to catch those aquamarines if possible and she might still be able to. “Your sapphire’s in there now,” she says, jabbing a thumb at the door. “She said she’ll be out in,” and Pearl tells her the time she’s been given, accounting for duration passed.

“I can’t believe she left that meeting early today. She’s usually so exact,” the pearl says. “Though she does like to mix things up now and again.”

“She confused us, actually,” Pearl admits. “I don’t believe she noticed I’m not you.”

She’s so much more _expressive_ than Pearl, at least when it comes to discomfort, and what an odd thing it is to see emotion she’s indulged only in private thought flash across a stranger’s face as though that were its natural position. “You didn’t correct her?”

“I didn’t want to be rude.”

The other pearl grimaces, squeezing her skirts. ”Stars, I’m so sorry. Thank you for keeping quiet, _thank_ you. If there’s anything-“

“Don’t worry about it. Please take back your job so I can return to mine,” Pearl says, stepping away from the wall. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be on my way.”

“Thank you!” The pearl calls again as Pearl strides off. Her whisper trails Pearl down the staircase. Pearl tries to shake the memory of her grateful frown.

She does manage to catch the aquamarines, and finds herself left with barely time to track down the other two - waiting in yet another hallway next to yet another trio of pearls. Two of them are blue, again, one’s eyes covered with a fringe resembling Blue’s. The third pearl is pale reddish-orange and has on bright yellow boots up to her knees. Pearl keeps stealing glances at them. Their attire is outrageous to her. The pearls are discussing Pink’s upcoming ball.

“-never invited,” one of the blue pearls is saying. “She’ll be unhappy about this one, too, she loves a turn in the spotlight...”

”Where has she been? Everyone knows it’s the same gems every time,” says the orange pearl. “Only the innermost circle get to see Pink Diamond in person.”

“Exactly. I’ve tried to say as much nicely, but she’s not perceptive about things,” sighs the blue pearl.

“It’s the spectacle, it draws gems in,” the other blue one adds. “The balls look marvelous onscreen, it’s always such a production - who wouldn’t want to attend one?”

Pearl can think of a gem or two.

The first blue pearl dips her head. Her gem is on her shoulder. “I suppose I can’t blame her. I like to watch the dancers.”

“I love seeing the Diamonds’ pearls,” the orange one says dreamily. Pearl twitches in her place. Their idle gossip is starting to feel conspicuous.

“Should we keep it down?” she says to the chatting pearls. They turn to Pearl with a look not unlike the one the earlier blue pearls had leveled at her.

“Oh, hello there. I didn’t see you come in,” says the orange pearl standing next to her.

“Not to worry! Our gems won’t be out until it’s done,” says the second blue pearl. “Plenty of time to catch up.”

“What brings you here?” The first blue pearl asks her politely.

“Coincidentally, the ball. My D-“ Pearl says. She recalls the orange one’s comment and catches herself before naming who it is exactly she belongs to. She scrambles for a substitute. “– _Demantoid_ – has preparations to attend to.”

All three of the pearls grimace at her. “A demantoid? Sounds exacting,” says the first blue one.

“I can’t imagine,” says the second. “Good luck keeping her happy.”

“She’s not... _so_ bad,” Pearl says, warily. “Mostly we ignore one another,” she admits.

“Sounds like mine,” says the orange one. “I hope you have fun at the ball, if she’s attending.”

“At the moment ‘fun’ is the least of my concerns when it comes to Pink Diamond’s ball,” Pearl mutters. The pearls laugh at that. Their reaction eases her nervousness at her lie. 

“I love to find pearls in the background on stream,” says the orange one. “You can see what styles are in and who’s still around and so forth.”

“That’s right!” says the second blue pearl. “I forgot - this is the first we’ll see of Pink Diamond’s new one.”

“Not a refurb?”

“I heard she‘s defaulted,” the other blue pearl says. Her companions glance at Pearl somewhat obviously. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“It’s funny for a Diamond’s. I wonder if it’s even the same pearl still,” says the orange one.

“Who would know?”

“Poor thing... Everybody saw what happened to the last one.”

Just then, the aquamarines she’s looking for drift out of another appointment down the hallway. She’d gotten the door wrong.

“Excuse me - there they are now,” Pearl says, wasting no time. The orange pearl nods good-bye.

Having successfully wrangled the court into order and accounted for tomorrow’s proceedings, Pearl is electrified with anticipation while she stands idle in Pink Diamond’s room, watching her charge pace bitterly around her throne-styled seat, hair and shoulders brushing the gently drifting curtain on each go-round. Pearl’s satisfaction at knowing she’s arranged the right pieces in the proper order for Pink’s court to perfectly conduct this ball is balanced by the knowledge that Pink Diamond’s real passion lies in her colony. She may go through the motions for the sake of her fellow Diamonds, but Pearl doesn’t expect any ball in the universe to make a difference in Pink Diamond’s opinion of her.

Pearl imagines the ball tomorrow: She’ll announce her diamond first, and take her place beside Pink Diamond’s elevated throne as her gems present themselves. Blue and Yellow and their diamonds will flank them, and perhaps even White Diamond’s radiance will grace the assembly from above. Pearl skims over trying to imagine that - aside from the knowledge of White Diamond’s utter perfection, the final diamond is a mystery. Pink, freely critical of Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond, has never made mention of the fourth, though she occasionally casts mournful gazes out her window at the ship. All Pearl knows of White Diamond is that she likes to remain in her head, and that somehow, she’s involved in the process of pearl creation. 

To calm her nerves, Pearl indulges herself in imagination of addressing the court on her diamond’s behalf, undeniably Pink’s in the face of every gem who’s given her the run-around over it. She even dares to imagine what it might be like should her color or costume match her Diamond’s at last: a different sort of pearl than the one mistook by sapphires and invisible beside her own gossip. She wonders if it really helps to look the part, or if it just offers a different sort of hindrance. From where do Blue and Yellow draw their grace? If it’s by design, she must be off-model.

The ball proceeds precisely on schedule. Pearl’s good sense and oversight have accounted for imperfections and compensated accordingly. The festivities begin without a catch, exactly according to plan, and every gem predictably does her part. Pearl announces their entrance, struts to Pink Diamond’s throne, and perches by her side, preening behind a perfectly impassive smile. Her diamond’s court arrays beneath them, idolizing. When the other diamonds arrive, Blue even offers her the slightest nod of approval on her way up the pearl-steps.

It means it takes Pearl until after both Diamond introductions to notice Pink Diamond’s grip on the arm of her seat intensifying, until Pink’s clutching it so tightly Pearl would say something about it if they weren’t in front of the whole court. Her short-lived internal crow of victory fades to a mewl. Will anything ever be enough? Pearl sneaks a glance at Yellow, balanced on her toes above them, hair coiffed to match her diamond’s. She looks exactly like she should. Her behavior is impossible to criticize. Pearl bites down on her annoyance at herself. If even Yellow has it all right, what excuse does she have?

Pink’s gems continue to line up and praise her, a procession Pink Diamond reluctantly acknowledges. The iridescent curtains of the ballroom flutter in the aquamarines’ collective grasp, wings leaving misty clouds of rainbow in the archway.

“To all in attendance,” rings a voice from the entryway, and the hall goes silent. Every gem looks to the curtains.

Pearl hears a cracking sound. Pink Diamond’s armrest has sprouted a hairline fracture, and her diamond is already storming down the steps, brushing past a movement of clockwork gems. Pearl frowns after her diamond’s impatience, hesitating over whether to follow for a moment, and then she sees it: hanging high above Pink Diamond’s curls.

There’s a pearl.

“White Diamond is concerned with more pressing affairs,” says the pearl, but it’s not a pearl’s voice. Pearl scurries to catch up with her diamond. Pink Diamond is looking straight ahead, seemingly intent on calling off the festivities without further fanfare. All that hard work, wasted. Pearl can’t stop stealing looks at the uninvited pearl. 

She’s bleached of all color, arms upraised, sheer skirt flowing in the air around her lower body. It’s especially unsettling now that Pearl’s properly met other pearls. The voice - the voice is dreadful.

“Her pearl will appear in her place.”

Pink Diamond nears the exit, still not acknowledging White Diamond’s pearl or her entrance. Pearl’s finally close enough to see it clearly, and her gem burns against her forehead. The other pearl’s pearl is embedded in her middle. One eye is caved in, the whole side of her face and head filigree cracks.

She makes eye contact. She’s smiling at Pearl.


	3. STRATEGIST

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl finds herself indulgent.

Pink Diamond won’t have authority over her first kindergarten. She hasn’t yet been discouraged from planning the next. Pearl’s study of gem production resumes while her diamond clings to that hope. There’s only so much insight to glean from indexing screens full of time stamps and gem cuts, so Pearl takes to pulling up the associated logs. Pearl buries herself in minutiae, trading time for information - she needs anything to think about but the ever-present memory of the ball.

“ _Log date: 1 11 3. Today, our most Radiant, Luminous - Oh, who am I fooling? She’s never going to listen to these._ ” Pearl clicks her tongue in surprise. The Peridot’s recording continues. 2H9A-something. “ _Even the data on this kindergarten is a mismanaged, off-color dirt pile, and every gem responsible should have been reassigned if not harvested altogether. Next report in two cycles, when I’m proven right. End log._ ”

The records are punctuated by little moments like these: for the most part, technicians’ dry summaries of the day’s events do little more than corroborate numbers Pearl’s seen already on official reports, but once in a while one of them logs contextual evidence or opinion unrelated to the work itself. For some reason Pearl can’t get enough of it. It becomes a sort of informal treasure hunt amid her work of preparing Pink Diamond for her colony, in between the diamond’s many anxieties and time spent standing pointlessly by the pool.

“ _Log date: 1 21 1. The unstable injector in Facet Three finally fell down. One gem discorporated. If only I were there in person to stand beside her._ ”

Pearl laughs at the gem’s matter-of-fact footnote. She imagines this Peridot standing in the Kindergarten the logs come from, before the colony is drained of resources, cheering as a gem injector tips onto her from above because discorporation means time away from work. She can relate to the feeling, though her own purpose is very different. The recordings inspire Pearl to imagine what the other gem is - or might have been - like, even though she’ll never meet one. There’s often an interesting piece or two of practical knowledge in these diaries, information Pearl might not have encountered otherwise. Though when, for example, some understanding of a grapevine support structure or the idea of calculating small figures on her fingers (and that some other gems call them _touch-stumps!_ ) might come in useful, Pearl can’t say. But it’s exciting to know something she’s never imagined. It helps her feel prepared for the unexpected. 

The mounting pressure of past failures pursues Pearl. She can’t afford to rest. She can’t shake the sight of White’s pearl. She thinks about anything else.

“That was Pink Diamond’s former pearl, wasn’t it?” Pearl says to the others first thing at their next extraction-side chat. She doesn’t bother specifying.

“Yes,” Blue confirms, like it’s nothing.

“What-“

“You’re much more practical than she was.” Yellow says. “I never expected Pink Diamond to keep you this long.”

“Be kind,” says Blue.

“What happened?” Pearl says. Her peers exchange looks. “Oh, come on. Just say it.”

“You won’t end up like her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” says Yellow.

“Of course I’m worried about-“ Pearl terminates her sentence. “Fine. It’s none of my business how she - _that_. I’ll just keep _following the rules_ and hope it doesn’t happen a second time. Or have there been others?”

Yellow grimaces with what Pearl hopes is sincere guilt, though as the expression intensifies Pearl thinks maybe she shouldn’t have laid it on so strongly. She’s just so through with being denied an understanding at every turn.

“She did something very inappropriate,” says Blue. “In front of the entire court.”

“She never used her common sense,” says Yellow. “That’s what I meant - you take your purpose seriously. You won’t make the same mistakes Pink’s pearl did.”

Pearl’s not so certain of that. After all, she’s made plenty of her own. “What did she do?”

“She climbed up the prison tower with Pink Diamond inside,” says Blue, drawing a portable display from her gem. The thought puzzles even Pearl’s expanding imagination. She knows the tower, of course. But a pearl getting up on it? She tries to imagine the sight. Climbing? She can certainly imagine hallway pearls gossiping such a story, and the walls diffusing it.

Blue activates the display and swipes through. She shows Pearl an illustration of the scene.

“Why would she do that?” Pearl says.

“Who knows?” says Yellow.

“She got away with things for a long time,” says Blue. “It’s admirable, even if the end is tragic.”

“Admirable?” Pearl says, frowning. Her antecedent sounds like nothing but trouble.

“I don’t admire rule breakers,” Yellow says.

“What do the rules matter?” says Blue. Yellow sniffs. 

“Do you hear yourself?” Pearl says. She’s been enjoying Blue’s explanation, and her drawings, but the other pearl loses her with the last part. It’s the opposite of what the story’s meant to teach, she thinks. Their whole society is constructed out of gems; it’s literally designed to function at maximum efficiency. If gems don’t do what they’re meant to, what will even be left? “How do you imagine Homeworld operates?”

“Why do you think Pink Diamond exists, then? _You_ know why they keep her away from her gems.”

Pearl has the impulse to pretend she doesn’t, prove a point - but what is there to prove? She breaks rules, too, when it’s safe to do so. From what she’s seen, just about every gem does. Blue understands the diamonds better than anyone. She knows how they think, and by extension, how gemkind is run. Pearl recognizes this. By their own standards, Pink Diamond is defective. She’s different from the others; enough cause to cull were she another class of gem. She’s no head of an empire. There’s no place for her, which is why Pearl and Pink remain stored away in a room instead of managing a fleet of worlds. And this expenditure of resources even though, Pearl thinks, after her journey through the logs and Pink Diamond’s one-sided planning conversations, they’d probably do a good job with colonization in spite of their respective defects.

Every gem in the universe is made for a purpose, knowing from inception she exists to fill a use, and is supposed to end when her usefulness does. If the diamonds were adherents to their apparent ideology, Pink Diamond would not be here. But she is, and they make excuses for her, and waste on her image pointless costs like - like Pearl herself. Their hypocrisy is evident in their actions. Blue’s words sound radical, but once she’s paused Pearl sees the sense in her perspective. Blue’s right. The whole thing is a sham, more obviously than ever before. That being the case, revering a rebel makes sense, knowing Blue.

“The _only_ thing that truly matters is your purpose.” Blue puts away her picture in her gem.

In their line of work, making the diamonds happy. “But not for purpose’s sake. Your aim is to extend your own existence,” Pearl says. She doesn’t know how old Blue is.

“Isn’t everyone’s?”

...but she knows what it’s like to want to live, useful or not. “Fair enough.” 

She’ll gladly serve her off-color diamond forever, if that’s what it takes. Pearl wonders why she hasn’t considered this already. She’s been so preoccupied by trying to achieve her purpose, it has simply never occurred to her to put into words why she does it in the first place. It makes an eclipse of the difference between what she and Blue have been doing. Their work may be the same on a practical level, but now Pearl perceives Blue acting on her own behalf within the same system of influences. She’s just been following orders. Maybe there’s really no difference, but to Pearl, something shifts.

It’s an electrifying thought.

“They misunderstand the way other gems think, but the diamonds don’t really respect the rules any more than we do.” Blue disregards an indignant exclamation from Yellow. “Only White Diamond does. She makes up whatever story she wants to believe. Everyone is under her power.” 

Pearl’s taken it as a given, as all gems are meant to, that White Diamond exercises perfect judgment at all times. She _is_ perfect. Her purpose is to decide everything, and every gem is made for a purpose she dutifully performs. But once Blue’s pointed it out, Pearl easily draws the same natural conclusion: White Diamond isn’t always sensible in her decisions, any more than the Sapphire’s pearl who’d left her post. Pink Diamond is living proof. It even makes sense if Pearl starts to imagine White Diamond as a gem, knowing the other diamonds and the specific manner with which each of them skirts the subject of White. They’re all a bit foolish in their own way, a bit fanciful. But they’re also very powerful, and Blue’s words are dangerous.

“I see. Pink Diamond’s pearl is a reminder of that,” says Pearl, recalling the sight of Pink’s back. “Not for her alone.” That White would feel the need to do it at all speaks volumes. Pearl’s never thought of her own role in this manner. The idea of a pearl threatening anything sounds absurd.

“Well, of course,” Yellow interjects. “Everybody saw her climb the tower. Can’t go giving gems _new ideas_. Like the ones Blue’s trying to stuff you with now.”

“No gem wants to be the ‘renegade pearl’, no matter how discontent,” says Blue.

“She sounds a bit difficult,” says Pearl. She wonders if her predecessor and Pink had gotten along better as a result. Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s here to learn from Pink’s pearl’s mistakes, and now has a clear vision of survival. To what end, she’s not certain anymore.

“She was.” Yellow’s eyes are shut, presumably in disinterest.

“She always did what she wanted,” Blue says. Their diamonds’ extraction completes.

At long last Pink Diamond’s first-ever moon base is installed. The building is thrice the space of their enclosure on Homeworld: Pink’s terminal and communicator rest before her throne at its tip, from where she’ll perform her duty until the colony is complete. The room below contains a projector with which to see the planet’s surface. On the ground floor, Pearl watches Pink Diamond explore the narrow vault overhead, trailing fingers along her own unreliable likeness carved into the wall.

Pearl finds she misses home, not because it’s any more boring in the control room than back in Pink’s but because she misses the option of having anywhere else to go. Here there are no errand excuses to slip out on, a habit she’d regrettably indulged and now longs for. There aren’t even gems yet. Pink Diamond scrolls through her terminal. She’s back to ignoring Pearl, for the most part. They have plans upon plans for all of the structures soon to begin construction. Pearl starts watching stars through the crystal of the moon base’s dome. She occupies herself with memorizing their designations. Like every other gem, she’s always borne some instinctive skyward fondness, but Pink Diamond rarely spends time on her balcony, and only recently has Pearl learned to turn her gaze away from Pink Diamond altogether. She falls back into it as the days in the moon base creep forward. With no one else for company, any sign of engagement from Pink has Pearl hopping to her post. She’s determined to do her job well, however this experiment ends.

And Pink Diamond is still, after everything Pearl’s done, unhappy. Pearl can’t for her gem understand why she keeps putting herself in this situation. No matter what she does, inevitably they return to this: silently side-by-side in some room, Pink morose and Pearl idly wondering which whim will be her last. The comedy isn’t lost on her. Pearl successfully navigates every unforeseen circumstance in her way and yet she is relentlessly inept at the one thing she was made for.

She takes Blue’s advice and examines both the letter and the spirit of the rules. She rushes to do Pink Diamond’s bidding, and eases her effort in affairs the diamond takes no notice of. She may as well make efficient use of her time. She maps the stars in her mind. Pearl starts to imagine for Pink Diamond whatever she thinks will be most exciting, even if it’s not based in reality - a bit like what she’s been doing for herself. It works on Pink Diamond, too. 

This is how Pearl comes to accidentally invent Rose Quartz.

It’s uncanny. It’s exactly like the character she imagined come to life - the most flattering quartz form she can think of, on a whim, and cheerful - no trace of Pink Diamond in her spirit or stature. She beams at Pearl and keeps beaming. Pearl follows her to the Kindergarten and out among the organics, playing her part, stunned by the stranger chasing meadows before her. Rose Quartz thinks Pearl is clever, and useful, and says as much openly. Rose Quartz is happy with her. Rose Quartz is _so_ happy.

They sneak out to earth again and again. Pink Diamond hunches over her terminal, chewing her lower lip, only calling on Pearl when she needs something. When Rose Quartz flashes into being, she’s delighted by everything Pearl shows her. Rose is especially enchanted with organic life. Pearl watches her rub flower petals between fingertips. They both breathe in the scent.

She can’t be doing something right, can she? It feels like nothing at all. She’s behaving no different from before - it’s easier, in fact. All she has to do is teach Rose something, or point her in the direction of some sticks and bugs, and the quartz - the diamond - is the picture of excitement. She gathers Pearl up in an unchecked embrace, and it’s thrilling even as it’s strange, because Pearl sees such liveliness in Rose, like no gem she’s ever known, and she feels, for perhaps the first time in her life, no worry at all.

Pearl remains guardedly pleasant. She performs the way only a pearl is instructed to perform. It’s almost like Rose Quartz is a completely different person. Some imaginary gem without a purpose, without a care in the world. But this person, whoever she is, is happy, isn’t she? Isn’t that enough? Pearl’s had to try so hard, and for what? Is this what it feels like to succeed? No wonder gems like Yellow are so devoted to their status quo. Pearl’s common sense tells her it can’t be real. She tries to keep the truth in her head, to integrate the two gems’ personalities as one. But Pearl recognizes no trace of Pink Diamond in Rose Quartz, and hardly an echo of Rose Quartz in Pink Diamond.

Presuming it _is_ an act - and this, this is the most dangerous thought of all, Pearl’s just applying the same critical thinking she’s learned from Blue and Yellow - if Rose Quartz is only for show, then who’s the audience? Who is _she_ for? They’re always alone. Did Pearl create her for Pink to slip out of the moon base and entertain herself, or has Pink stolen Pearl’s hypothetical wholesale and rendered her real? To what end? Because not only does Pearl seem miraculously capable of keeping Rose Quartz happy, Rose Quartz also makes - well, Pearl finds their planetside expeditions pleasant, too. It’s a nice change of pace from before.

Rose makes it easy to believe.


	4. STORYTELLER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl looks out for herself.

Rose sneaks them around the back of the construction site – one of Pink Diamond’s new Amethyst barracks – ignoring Pearl’s cautionary protests. It was Pearl who’d put it in her mind in the first place, but that was back in the projection room when the idea was imaginary.

“Shall we take a look at the progress of the spires instead?” Pearl tries again, ducking under a lashing branch as Rose stomps ahead. Her sleeve catches on something. Pearl stumbles while tugging it out, bumping into Rose, who’s stopped all of a sudden. She’s staring past the tree line.

“Rose?” Pearl says. The alias comes naturally now. 

Rose blinks and finally seems to notice Pearl. She turns. “Huh, that must get in the way,” she says. She’s looking at Pearl’s torn dress.

“Well, yes,” says Pearl. She can’t always decipher what attracts Rose’s attention, but if it’s attached to her own body that makes things easier. “I’m not exactly designed for - traipsing,” she says.

“Nor hiking. Have you considered changing into something else?” says Rose. Then a new interest catches her eye. “Oh! Bismuths!”

Pearl grabs her arm before Rose can run over in greeting. They duck to avoid the bismuths. Rose slips out from under their cover in the direction the other gems had come from. It’s a good thing she’s distracted, because Pearl heats in frustration in the wake of Rose’s careless comment about her uniform. It’s not so much the overall game, but moments like these, that rankle her. She never feels certain whether Rose is really so oblivious to her - Pink’s - station, or if Pink Diamond’s secretly having a laugh of some kind at Pearl’s expense. The only thing convincing her of the likelihood of the former is that Pearl doesn’t think she’s ever seen Pink Diamond joke. Her time on Earth has taught Pearl she doesn’t know Pink Diamond half as well as she thought, so she tries to be prepared for anything. Pearl wonders what Blue would have to say about it all.

“‘Considered changing?’ Really? No, never!” Pearl mutters to herself, following Rose out into the open. “Of all the...”

Pearl’s skirt gets stuck as well, and, after a hesitant glance over her shoulder, Pearl decides to interpret Rose’s statement as blanket license to shapeshift and transmutes the whole thing away. The puffy sleeves, too. She’s left with something that looks, certainly preferable to the previous, and easier to move around in, but sort of incomplete...

Rose locates a newly-erected set of quartz standby stations and hops up the scaffolding to get a better look. Pearl keeps an eye out for audiences while fiddling with her clothes. She stifles novel impulse with utility, and settles on something straightforward and practical. It’s strange to stare down and not see her skirts. Not _bad_ strange, but strange nonetheless. She’s always looked exactly the same. Not having known of the option, she’s never paid much thought to what she might prefer to wear. Definitely not since the ball. She adjusts the length of her shorts. It’ll do for now. Pearl pats absentmindedly at her side.

Rose hauls herself up onto one of the half-built dormitory walls, a honeycomb of cut stone. She hops in a cubby and says, “Look, Pearl! I fit - “ she bumps her head on the ledge and shapeshifts a bit smaller - “I fit perfectly!”

Pearl hushes her from the ground, waving at Rose to descend, but it’s too late: the bismuths find them.

Her fears don’t come to pass. The pair of bismuths who’ve come down to shoo them off only inform Rose that they must be lost and usher the two of them away from the site. They ignore Pearl and her odd outfit entirely.

“Before you get into trouble out here,” says one to Rose, with warmth. 

“Quartzes, am I right?” she hears the bismuth’s partner say as they retreat. Pearl follows Rose back in the direction of the warp.

“That looks easier to move around in.”

Pearl looks down at the new tunic. “Yes, it is.”

“I like the color.”

“Thank you,“ Pearl says. 

Rose becomes Pink Diamond again when they return to the moon base, pulling up some missed call from Yellow Diamond on her communicator. Pearl, feeling conspicuous next to Pink Diamond without her sleeves, reverts to default. Pink Diamond’s posture is terrible, as always; it doesn’t affect Pearl, so she doesn’t point it out. Pink’s hunched in her throne, fiddling with the diamond line. She’s putting off listening to Yellow Diamond’s message.

“Why don’t we see how the Sky Arena is coming along, my diamond?” Pearl suggests, opening the stairway. Pink doesn’t respond. She follows Pearl down to the observation deck. Pearl activates the projector.

It’s the right choice to steal Pink’s attention. Pink Diamond is recently obsessed with her fighting arena - she wants to sneak in as Rose, and almost does, but Pearl manages to convince her the warp-only entrance poses too much risk. Pink keeps pulling it up in the projection room as construction comes together. She sends Pearl back home to fetch a pair of material weapons, and though the request gives her pause Pearl can easily imagine Rose prancing around the projector with a sword in each hand, sparring ghosts. She tries to picture it of Pink Diamond, but Rose’s behavior is too strange, even for her. 

Pearl slips under the familiar shroud of anonymity on Homeworld, where gems’ eyes scan right past her, and seeks out Pink Diamond’s only training armory. After their outing’s substantial revelation, Pearl considers shifting a more convincing costume and claiming Pink after all. She’s admittedly eager to try, though the only one she’s admitted it to is herself - but she doesn’t want to end up in the background of somebody’s recording, or conduct Pink’s business too obviously, so the other diamonds don’t catch on to their activities on Earth. There’s security in defaulting.

A squad of carnelians spar in the arena yard, teams of three facing off between columns of polished stone. The broad-shouldered gems represent a range of reds and oranges, all with the characteristically wild hair of a quartz. The gems on one team are tussling. A carnelian has her arm wrapped around another’s head. They’re both laughing from their whole bodies. It makes Pearl smile. Rose has performed a similar gesture once or twice, caught up in her excitement. Her experience around soldier gems having been limited to the occasional brush with strangers by a warp, in the past Pearl has sort of flattened all of them into the same light, characterized by role alone: big, strong warrior gems, made to be beautiful, and prone to rowdy violence. Maybe it’s that she now has a quartz friend - although Pink Diamond is not really a quartz, and not in reality her friend - but as Pearl watches the carnelians prepare for their fight, she finds she can’t mistake them like she would before. One guard with her gem on her foot hangs back, following her partners’ lead with clear shyness; another, almost orange under a messy maroon mane, leaps into the air with twice the energy of her (nonetheless encouraging) fellows. Pearl even sees an individual standing off to the side like a pearl, arms crossed, watching the others. She looks bored.

Pearl’s walking calmly behind the bored soldier, nearly to the armory door, when three of the sparring carnelians burst into light. 

_Fusion._ She’s seen it on a screen but not in person before. The air heats up, and their end of the training hall goes momentarily humid. The quartzes’ gems rearrange themselves in midair, and a new, larger physical form projects. Pearl wonders what that must feel like. She tries to picture combining like that with Yellow and Blue; they’re too different. She imagines herself, the same height as Pink. She wonders whether it disorients Rose to shapeshift so much smaller than Pink Diamond. Pearl supposes she could now try and go bigger, if ever she’s curious. It’s probably a waste of energy to stretch out her form. Another three-gem team fuses. She lands heavily on the arena floor. The two giant carnelians circle one another, their comrades hollering from the sidelines. Pearl slips into the armory.

After Pink’s pearl, Pearl measures everything in terms of real survival, rather than adherence to her role. If it’s not in service to making Pink - or Rose - happy, it’s irrelevant unless Pearl has some other reason to care. Pink’s indifference to most things in general is to Pearl’s advantage now, not just the source of her doubt. This attitude presents a more sensible approach and makes her day-to-day decisions simpler. Now it gets her into trouble.

Pearl selects two swords from among the quartz arms, as directed, and slips them into her head. When she makes to leave, she finds a holly blue agate manager in her path by the staves. The agate’s gem sits at her middle, like Rose’s.

“Why are you rummaging through Pink Diamond’s armory?”

What a stupid line. Pearl doesn’t have time for this posturing clod. Does she mean to intimidate? She knows Pearl’s purpose just by looking at her. Why else would she be here? “Excuse me,” she says, but when Pearl tries to step around the agate moves to block her path. Her shins are touching the skirts of Pearl’s dress. She lifts a hand, and Pearl tenses for a fight. The agate slaps a lance to the floor.

“Pick it up.”

“Uh, no,” says Pearl, baffled by the stranger’s unprovoked rudeness. She casts an incredulous glance through the door at the bored carnelian, who appears considerably less bored. “Pick it up yourself.”

The agate steps closer. She’s about the usual height of Rose. Before acclimating to their adventures, Pearl would have been petrified by such a large stranger at short distance. This agate can crack her gem in one hand, if she wishes. Pearl searches for her dread and finds only exasperation. These days she takes more than a difference in height or rank to unbalance.

The carnelians on the other side of the training arena have unfused and are spectating the agate’s prejudiced bullying of Pearl with heads tilted in curiosity. Their agate notices them watching. She reaches for Pearl. Her hand tightens around Pearl’s upper arm.

“I’d look good with a pearl, don’t you think?” she says, dragging Pearl around to face them. Pearl tugs to no avail. The other gem is made for corralling fighters, so she’s strong enough to hold Pearl still. “Even this default. Maybe I should have one.”

“Well, you don’t,” Pearl says, straining at the agate’s grip. A low note of that newly-banished terror seeps back in. Really? Harassed as soon as she sets foot on Homeworld? Pearl may be here on Pink’s wishes, but she doesn’t want to invoke that name among these gems if she can avoid it. At this point she doesn’t imagine Pink Diamond cares much at all what Pearl’s up to, but she prefers no word of her foolishness reach Yellow and Blue, or their diamonds. But this agate is clearly caught up in some kind of power trip.

“Not yet,” leers the agate.

The carnelians haven’t said anything, but another of their peers has joined the group of rubberneckers. Pearl is unused to drawing attention, and disquieted by their silence. She glares at the agate, whose smugness only sharpens. She’s in no hurry to release Pearl.

“You’re wasting everyone’s time,” Pearl tells her frankly. “And you’re not impressive. Let go of me now, and I’ll be on my way.”

The carnelians are gaping at her; even the agate’s eyes widen, before narrowing in fury. Her fingers loosen just long enough for Pearl to slip out of her grip and duck away. The agate lunges after her. She knocks over a whole rack of spears and trips herself on one in the process. Pearl steps around the mess, dancing out of the agate’s reach. The manager gem scrambles to chase her, and Pearl dashes past an astonished chest-gem carnelian who points her in the direction of the closest warp. Pearl thanks her and takes off down the walkway. She can hear the agate’s enraged bootsteps catching up, and further behind them, her quartzes’ merry jeering.

Pearl can’t outpace the agate forever, and if she runs straight to the warp it’ll record where she goes. She remembers avoiding gems on Earth and circles around from another direction instead. Pearl ducks down a side hallway and takes a corner, skidding to a stop in front of a closed door. Warp pad in sight. There’s no other pearls around, but certain walls are alive, so the area must see some elites. Pearl assumes position beside the door, smiling calmly ahead, hands folded together. At the last moment, she thinks to change the color of her dress just to be sure. The holly blue agate storms by moments later, lip curled in fury, casting her gaze about the hall. She doesn’t spare Pearl a second glance. Pearl holds her breath until she can no longer hear stomping. She leans back against a crystal column and laughs until her eyes water.

She notices the opposite wall staring. Pearl crosses her arms. “What are you looking at?“ she says.

The wall looks her up and down. “A pearl tricking agates. What‘re _you_ looking at?”

“A rude wall.”

The wall doesn’t rise to her insult. “I’ve heard rumors of a default pearl running around, fooling people. You’re very interesting.”

“Must be another. As you can see, I’m blue.” She strides over to the warp and sets a sole on the crystal. The wall watches her. 

“Who do you belong to?” she asks.

Pearl has always hesitated to answer that question, now worse than ever, but she’s just outrun an agate and refuses to give anyone else the satisfaction of seeing her flounder. She activates the warp. Just before she’s transmitted, Pearl sticks her chin and chest out, grinning, and addresses the wall directly. “Nobody!”

Won’t _that_ be a strange story for the hallway pearls. The thrill of it gets her giddy in the light-stream, and Pearl smirks into her fists in the aftermath. She’s never been _interesting_ before. She alights at the other end, self-satisfaction still on her lips, and seeks out the galaxy warp to return to Earth. Pearl presents the fruits of her errand to Pink with a flourish.

There Pearl encounters her second surprise of the day. Rose – Pink Diamond – expects to engage _her_ in combat. It’s absurd. Pearl holds her tongue. Pink Diamond turns into Rose Quartz, and Rose guides Pearl through four of Yellow Diamond’s basic drills. 

Rose’s hand is warm by her forearm, steering her grip into form, barely touching. Pearl’s not practiced at questioning Pink directly, but she doesn’t think there’s any danger in it and she’s found Rose appreciates a dialogue. She decides to ask.

“Oh,” Rose says. “I just thought we’d try something new. We’re not doing what we’re supposed to, anyway.”

Pearl raises an eyebrow.

“In a good way!” Rose says. “You’re so smart, I - was curious if you could learn to fight. Me too. Not because _I’m_ smart - but, you know, like a quartz.” She rarely acknowledges her not-real-ness and she almost looks embarrassed at the statement. It’s personifying.

Pearl’s not sure what to say. Her face colors. “Well. I. How unprecedented.”

“I know,” says Rose, with relish.

“Suppose it won’t hurt to try,” Pearl says. She eyes the sword in her grip.

“It gets tedious, though,” says Rose. 

“I’ll manage.” Pearl withholds mention of their former - present - other? arrangement.

“Apparently if you want to be any good you have to do this thousands of times. We don’t have to work at it so long.”

“Whatever you like, Rose,” says Pearl.


	5. STAND-IN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl does it for Pearl.

Time on Pink Diamond‘s base turns to the same old thing. Pink tries to convince the Diamonds to spare life on Earth, and Pearl accompanies her. Pearl often thinks of the day Rose stepped down from her head. She is bored alongside the other Diamonds’ pearls at their appointments. She’s bored next to Pink’s command chair. Sword practice dwindles away from their regular schedule and is lost amid Rose’s other whims, but Pearl still has their weapons stored in her gem.

Pearl recalls the friendly Amethysts Rose greeted upon emergence. She imagines the carnelian guards, sparring back on Homeworld. She remembers their hesitance in front of their agate, and the agate’s embarrassed glower. Pearl knows very well how gems are made, from all her studying, save the lingering mystery of the Reef. Gem injectors dispense the same stuff grid-to-grid - what’s in the ground determines who germinates and their might. Peridotite becomes peridots, and a quartz vein begets quartz. Pearl plainly sees in strangers the distinction between consignment, composition, and personality. If Pearl can outpace and outsmart even the one soldier, whatever her size and shape, and all other soldiers are only - well - individual - like Pearl, after all, the main difference being which packet of information is imposed at origin and an arbitrary corral of permissions, it stands to reason Pearl is capable of their task if she has the right data for it, too. She’d done the same watching pebbles and browsing technicians’ logs, more or less. 

And, Pearl thinks, Pink never told her _not_ to practice. Pink Diamond has told Pearl to stop so many times, Pearl has grown accustomed to doing nothing when not requested. But all that’s different now with sword training is the diamond’s level of interest. She hasn’t taken it back. Better that Pearl use her time well. Wearing the excuse of Pink Diamond’s wishes, Pearl starts drills again when alone. She’s not secretive about it, per se. She just prefers to study by herself. She pulls up feed after feed of important fighters from Homeworld’s battle network, and mimics them with sword in hand. Privately, Pearl thinks, she obviously wasn’t built for it. She’d never dare to correct Pink to her face, not with Pearl’s longevity increasingly secure and even enjoyable. Pearl knows exactly how much time the colony will take to complete. She wants to appreciate these days before they’re gone. She indulges.

And Rose is always delighted to be taught something new.

When Pink Diamond leaves Pearl behind, she slips into the projection room and keeps rehearsing. She analyzes the fight records even when Pink Diamond’s present, lost in her terminal, unconcerned with Pearl. It works out nicely for her. Not much has changed. It’s only a little insulting that whatever Pearl might be doing, whatever Rose may say about her, outside of Earth she remains beneath Pink’s notice. One day Pearl realizes she’s adept at waving a sword in the air. She’s reaching the limit of what imitation can teach her. She needs a sparring partner. She continues to parry and thrust in the dark and waits for Rose to ask again, but Rose has forgotten about training almost entirely.

Their hikes on Earth are fair trade, though. Where Pink Diamond remains an empty chamber, Rose is a babbling brook in full bloom. Pearl‘s improved at telling stories with her holograms. She animates her many idle thoughts. She imagines for Rose, whatever she wishes, each tale more fantastic than the last. Her companion makes an excellent audience. Rose is dazzled by Pearl’s demonstrations, and free with her applause. Pearl watches her laugh at the anecdote about the peridot and injector. Pearl embellishes the _POOF!_ of the peridot’s form disintegrating, and Rose snorts at the image, not knowing the story is true. Pearl thinks about imagining Rose, the first time. Just an appearance, without much thought. Now she’s as real as can be - or as real as Pearl, at least. This memory gives her an idea.

Holo-pearl is born. Pearl has her wear the sensible costume and mimic the movements of the fighters. It’s funny to watch at first, because she looks like a pearl. It’s audacious. Pearl wonders how Rose keeps a straight face when they cross swords. But she’s an excellent rival, and Pearl fiddles with her design until the difficulty can be adjusted according to Pearl’s needs. Pearl picks out different backdrops on the orb, starting with places she and Rose have visited. She makes up little stories for their duels to pass the time. Pearl imagines the most wicked, terrible version of a pearl to pit herself against, for the fun of it. Holo-pearl’s cast as her foe in thirty thousand practice bouts while Pearl dictates the narrative. Pearl always aims to fight her to a draw. Unlike an actual pearl, Holo-pearl is literally made for fighting. She exists to engage in combat. She heckles her opponent. She attacks from behind. She’s all sorts of things that someone who looks exactly like Pearl cannot be in reality. She’s Pearl’s second-finest creation.

“Disgusting,” Pearl says when Rose explains the human processes she’s been trying: eating and waste. Rose’s new friends introduce her to too many experiences. Pearl can’t keep up, and has no desire to. She has little interest in organics.

“Well, they’ve got to eat,” Rose points out. “And it’s got to go somewhere when it’s done. Like how kindergartens turn into gems.”

“It’s still disgusting,” Pearl says.

Her revulsion entertains Rose. She’s so odd. “I think it’s fun.”

She tailors their fantasies according to Rose’s interest. They collaborate on a backstory, and it’s not too far from the truth, except for all of it. Rose becomes a runaway quartz (inconceivable), seduced by a curiosity for organic life. She’s not an ideal role-play partner; she regularly leaves Pearl at dead ends. But that just gives Pearl greater freedom to elaborate.

“That’s when you met the humans, of course,” says Pearl. “You developed such a fondness for their vile biological exercises-” Rose laughs “- you decided to stay on Earth, instead of doing what you were supposed to.”

“Hmm,” Rose says. “I’d have done it for the flowers.”

“And because they look so much like gems,” Pearl amends, trying to forge unreality into narrative. “They remind you of yourself. If you were made of meat and bone instead of music and matrices.”

Rose shifts in place. They’re sitting on a fallen log overwater, ankles trailing furrows in the stream underneath. “I’d do it for gems too. I think humans have the right idea.”

“The gems in your facet think you’re out of your mind,” Pearl narrates. “They can’t fathom what one does without a purpose.”

“Maybe they just need to try?”

“Well,” says Pearl. She looks down. Below the surface lies a piebald clutch of stones. “I imagine that’s where I come in.”

She thinks she might be getting carried away, but Rose doesn’t tell her to stop. Rose never tells Pearl to stop. 

“Yeah, that sounds right,” says Rose.

The way Rose looks at her reminds her of the way Rose looks at the earth. It reminds her of the wall calling her _interesting_. She thinks - wants to think - it’s real affection, on some level. Rose adores her. Her stories. Pearl’s never been adored before. She remembers retrieving Pink from her fun with her Spinel. It feels like a lifetime ago. In a way, it is. Pearl tries to picture Rose contained to a single gridlocked garden. It doesn’t work. 

She likes to imagine it’s actually Pearl that Rose is so fascinated by and not just Earth. The stories start to taste like wishes. Pearl’s well past censoring her own frustrations and desires, internally at least. She wishes she weren’t made for Pink Diamond, that Pink Diamond isn’t actually Rose. She wishes she’d been made for Rose alone. This all would be so much simpler, and more fun. It’s fun as-is. Her wish is not exactly accurate to the thought, but she can’t imagine another way to say it. What they do on Earth is inexplicable. She’s not Rose’s, and doesn’t want to be. They pretend they’re just sort of - them, no one anybody’s, no empire, and no real purpose but to be. But that’s not possible in real life. Not for gems.

They rest beneath an outcropping and watch the rain come down. There’s not much space. They sit close together, Rose’s back against rock and Pearl’s against Rose. Pearl’s legs are crossed. The heaviness of her companion’s damp curls settles over her head and gem. Her arm rests on Rose, whose bare feet stick out of their shelter, getting wet. Rose has just returned from a solar festival. Her humans hold one twice a year.

“Everything happens so quickly for them,” says Rose. “We’ve been here for generations, from a human’s perspective. They’re very funny.”

This is true. Pearl doesn’t think much of the creatures, but as Rose does, she tries to be polite about it. “I suppose they’ve learned to make the most of things.”

“They’re the same as other organics,” Rose says. “Consuming resources for energy, communicating, reproducing, growing over time. Their solstices are all wrapped up in celebrating the sources of life. Most of an organic being’s effort goes into staying alive, for as long as they can.”

“Just like gems,” muses Pearl. She feels Rose shift behind her. Pearl looks up.

Rose is gazing at her thoughtfully. She grins when she notices Pearl watching. “I never know what you’ll say next,” she says. 

Unpredictability is always a compliment, coming from Rose. Pearl feels at her zenith.

Pearl accumulates a sword collection. It’s not premeditated. When she and Rose finally sneak into the Sky Arena and Rose is animatedly inspecting the plant life, Pearl spots a framework hosting material weapons for fighters’ use. Her curiosity gets the better of her. She hums and prods and weighs in her hands a procession of hilts, until one fits just right in her fist. Into her gem it goes. It’s a game she plays now when left to her own devices. She has several. Pearl readies a reasonable explanation for her burglary, even if she’ll never have occasion to voice it: she needs to broaden her weapons knowledge as her fighting skills advance. She naturally starts to swipe axes and pole arms too. She organizes them in the space in her gem, which Pink’s never bothered to take advantage of. It’s as simple as walking in and saying she’s supposed to fetch something. She names a different gem each time. No one doubts a pearl going about her purpose, and no one troubles her again like the agate. They overlook her entirely.

She gets ahead of herself on Earth. Rose is socializing with soldiers by the edge of a packed-earth ring for training, distracting them from their duties. Pearl watches her for a bit. The quartzes’ manager is nowhere to be seen. Pearl doesn’t want to blow their cover, so she doesn’t join in, though as onlooker she has the frame to critique everyone’s form. Standing still soon becomes tiresome. On a whim, Pearl steps away from her post. She creeps through the tool room next to Pink’s army’s armory, now almost complete. The swords are arranged neatly on their rack, and Pearl recognizes straight away that taking one will leave an obvious gap. Gems are gullible, but not many strangers come to Earth. She doesn’t want to risk Rose’s secret. She finds a few crude blades tucked off on their own between the arms cabinets and the wall. They’re sandy, dented, and a little worse for wear. Pearl picks one up to consider. It’s not pretty, but she figures it won’t be missed.

“Well, hello. What’re you doing here?”

Pearl turns around. There’s a bismuth eyeing her from the entry, gem on chest, one arm propping the door open. Pearl fumbles for an excuse. A pearl on Earth is a much odder sight than on Homeworld. She’s not even sure off the top of her head which gems are stationed at this particular location. Certainly nobody important enough to have been given to. Pearl realizes she’s been slacking. She falls back on her usual defense. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Uh, materials research.” The bismuth gives her a look up and down. “Your turn.”

“I’ve been sent to retrieve a sword,” Pearl says, sticking her nose in the air in imitation of Yellow. She knows her act’s unconvincing, but gems don’t take much to persuade. For once she wishes she were wearing something more pearl-ish.

“Not that one,” the bismuth says.

“What do you know?” says Pearl.

“I know it’s not that one. Need a hand?” The bismuth shapeshifts her left into a shortsword. She turns it back when Pearl only frowns. “Or not, all right then.”

“You’re not supposed to be in here either,” Pearl says. The stranger’s physical form is blocking the only exit.

The bismuth is unbothered. “Yeah, I know. That’s how I know that’s not your sword.”

Pearl hesitates.

The bismuth sighs. She runs a hand through her hair. “Okay... take it, if you want. I didn’t see anything. Just didn’t want you to get it wrong ‘cause you didn’t know.”

Well, she certainly doesn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. Maybe it’s best to heed the other gem’s advice. 

Pearl ventures, “And which might be the correct choice?”

“I dunno, those?” The bismuth gestures at the rack of quartz soldier swords. She watches Pearl.

Pearl puts the first back where she’d found it and steps back to scrutinize the lot. The bismuth trods into the armory, coming up beside her. They’re of better make, by far, but a number have been left a bit dull.

“Who do you belong to, anyway? A warrior?” the bismuth says. Pearl ignores her. She moves out of the way as Pearl paces to the other end of the cabinet. These are on the smaller side, and better suited to her grip. The bismuth perks up when Pearl slides a blade out to evaluate more closely. “Know anything about material weapons?”

It’ll do. Pearl takes the sword and leaves without answering. 

She lets herself breathe once she’s safely at the warp, far from the curious bismuth. That was a close call. She needs to be more careful. Rose catches up a bit later.

Holo-pearl learns to fuse like the carnelians so that Pearl can fight bigger and stronger opponents, and not just their movesets. Pearl engages in dialogue with her, acting out dramas to inspirit her self-imposed workload. She inserts characters based on people in her head - sometimes she’s defending Yellow against the Holo-pearl, who looks down on sensible pearls, and sometimes Holo-pearl sabotages injectors and knocks them down to discorporate discontent peridots. The bismuth makes an appearance or two, parrying Holo-pearl with the flat of her transformed hand. 

She concocts a backstory for herself - her-on-earth-self - like Rose’s. She’d be the terrifying runaway pearl - because what could be more frightening than a gem who discards what she’s for? - with a fictional careless charge, the nonexistent demantoid Pearl’s occasionally invoked as alias. Her demantoid is stifling and preoccupied with the business of her colony, and not worth cheering with a song. The pearl learns to fly a spaceship by way of planetbase gossip and one day she runs away from it all. She meets Rose on Earth. She chooses to make her happy instead of the demantoid. The silly thing about the story is the pearl’s presumption in having the option at all. If it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone do it?

Pink Diamond‘s prone to lose herself in her work for days, even when Pearl’s standing right there. In a regular moment of bitterness at being ignored, Pearl starts to practice where she is in the middle of the command room. Not much point of sneaking around when Pink couldn’t care less one way or the other. She’s been working on her dual-wielding, Holo-pearl’s too. She likes the thought of having a second sword in hand in case one is stuck or disarmed. Even if it’s a skill she’ll never have occasion to use, Pearl’s determined to perfect it. Lost in thought, she executes the aerial maneuver she’s been working on. Pearl’s excitement at nailing the landing is short-lived. As her awful luck would have it, Pink looks up, and her eyes widen. Pearl thinks she’s finally managed to get herself shattered.

Not so. Pink is beside herself in excitement and admiration. Holo-pearl enraptures her. Pearl can actually recognize in her Rose. Pink, for some reason, doesn’t draw the same conclusions Pearl has - she talks of Pearl’s accomplishment as though it were a major discovery, not the logical outcome of a dozen decades’ work and careful study - and while Pearl’s satisfaction with this overdue recognition of her potential is unmatched, Pink follows it up by acting on her most foolish instinct yet.

Pearl’s to be hauled in front of White Diamond to present the outcome of her labor. When Pink sends off the message, Pearl feels her greedy vision of the future slip away. She remembers Blue’s words. She remembers Pink’s last pearl. White Diamond doesn’t entertain Pink’s request, however. She does something worse.

“A pearl is not a toy, Pink.”

Pearl’s standing in flawless pearl posture by Pink’s palanquin’s throne, looking straight ahead at the curtain as Pink’s former pearl addresses her diamond with White’s voice. Pearl is acutely aware of White Diamond’s words. It’s like she’s speaking directly to Pearl - well, not actually, a diamond would never - but it _feels_ that way. The ball was horrific enough, but Pearl’s never known her proximity to ruination the way she does with White’s pearl right there, and Pearl powerless to run or even speak on her own behalf.

The other pearl’s hand is frozen right in front of Pearl’s face. She can’t stop looking at it, because it’s in the middle of where she’s supposed to look. The palm is curled gently upward as though cupping starlight. Not a single twitch of the fingers. Not a sign of whoever she was - whoever Blue and Yellow knew and don’t like to speak of. Fortunately, she can’t see the other pearl’s eye; that honor is reserved for Pink. The diamonds discuss her over her head and Pearl understands she could have been absolutely anyone. She’s nobody. It doesn’t matter to White.

Rose has been a diamond all along. Pearl never should have pretended otherwise and lost track of her purpose. She’s an idiot caught up in delusion, and Pink’s planet has degraded her. She vows never to forget it again. The consequence is right before her eyes. Pearl can be replaced — needs to be replaced, really, has since the moment of her creation — and only Blue and Yellow will ever know she was alive in the first place. When White’s pearl leaves them, Pearl finds her fear again. She’s afraid in a way she hasn’t been since her life was new and the whole world remained a mystery. Only now it’s worse - now Pearl feels as though she knows too much to ever go back, and there’s no hope of forgetting it. She figures - she needs to pull her head out of visions and back to reality. She has come to love the sword, and it sits bitter to be denied it - but she won’t throw away her life for the sake of fun. If she intends to salvage this aberration and perform her purpose well enough to live a little longer, that they might forget she has knowledge she’s not supposed to, then she’s got to put more effort than ever before into figuring out just what will keep her diamond cheerful, and stay well out of White Diamond’s way.

She doesn’t have to give up Rose. Pretending to be Rose is Pink’s only source of happiness, which is Pearl’s reason for being, after all. Pink adores Earth, and as long as she never sees Pearl touch a weapon again, they can still explore in secret until the colony’s complete. Pearl can still tell her stories.

Unfortunately Rose now wants Pearl to instruct her in swordplay. Rose performs the first intentional misinterpretation of the rules that Pearl has seen from her since sneaking to Earth in the first place: “I’m not teaching you, you’re teaching me!”

Pearl hesitates. Earth has rendered her inept at concealing emotion, and Rose must see Pearl’s fear, because she redacts. “Never mind. It’s okay. We don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”

Something finally clicks for Pearl at the look on Rose’s face while she apologizes. She means it, and yet misinterprets the meaning for Pearl’s pause. Pearl realizes the diamond really is just that senseless. That selfish. She was made to be, after all, but as understanding sinks in Pearl rearranges their history. Pink Diamond has no sense of perspective; Pearl hadn’t disappointed her. It’s not something Pearl did. It never was. She tries to remember what Pink said to White during the meeting, but all of her attention went to the hand. 

It’s undeniably clear now that rather than act as a perfectly rational ruler, as gems are made to believe is her purpose, White abuses her power over the other diamonds to maintain control, just like the holly blue agate abused her power over Pearl to save face. It all echoes down that way, doesn’t it? And it’s nonsense, because Pearl’s a gem too. As is Pink. They all begin as the same primordial excretion and possess their own minds. The rest is by design; White’s. Although Pink’s a diamond, with enormous influence of her own, she’s as afraid of White as anyone - and unlike Pink with Pearl, White refuses the possibility of engaging in conversation. Pearl thinks Pink might not understand this like she does, like Blue. She can’t remember exactly what Pink was saying, but she seems to think White will listen if she just uses the right words, or performs the right task, when after having been in a room with her it’s obvious the only thing White listens to is her own power. It almost reminds Pearl of her younger self. Pearl wants to shout this at Pink, so she doesn’t make any more stupid, dangerous mistakes: the difference between their universes.

Pink is cringing back into her chair, a tremble on her face. She keeps darting glances at Pearl, air of misery compounding. Their eyes meet; she looks so much like Rose.

But this is Pink Diamond, not Rose, and Pearl still wants to live above all else, so Pearl forces down her nerves and reasoned resistance. She smiles. She says, “That’s all right. I’d love to.”


	6. CRIMINAL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl becomes her fantasy.

After the horror of having seen White’s pearl up close, Pearl goes numb to the passage of time. It feels like something about the world should be fundamentally different to mark the experience, but her daily life continues. At a rare convergence of the diamonds she tries to explain to Blue her conclusion that the empire is not only mismanaged but pointlessly inefficient. Pearl imagines that, were the gems who already keep the whole thing afloat to communicate with one another, scientifically adjust the information they’re all provided with, and organize the right logistics - Pearl remembers being thrust into running Pink’s ball, and thinks it must be achievable, surely almost any gem can learn to do White’s job better, the problem is one of power - but Blue has invested herself in strictly the ideology of freedom, and won’t risk engagement with material reality. The worst part is that Pearl understands. The structure of their very society fetters them in place from the moment of creation. Blue has had time to consider her options and knows how and why she wants to live. She’s no less imaginative than Pearl but less familiar with the rush of translating an imagined world into being, having been denied the opportunity. Pearl has changed. She’s a different person now. She doesn’t know how to explain her conviction to Blue. She wishes Blue could know life on Earth too. She wants it for herself and every gem.

“Your diamond shouldn’t have a pearl,” Blue says to her. Pearl knows what she means by it, that she doesn’t want to see Pearl nor presumably the prior harmed, but Pearl’s discontent is gem-deep.

“I emphatically disagree,” Pearl says. An approximate lie.

“You’re a good gem,” Blue says. “If only she‘d stop dragging you back to Earth.”

Ironically, Pearl gets through to Yellow more readily. She sees Pearl’s point. Her reasoning is sound. Why should Pearl, Yellow, or anyone else be coerced to perform the assigned task so faithfully, when White demonstrates no respect for her own? Isn’t it wrong to legitimize her system in the first place? This for eternity? Yellow knows well how unfair and unfit to lead White Diamond is, from experience with hers. But Yellow’s unwilling to break the rules. Like Blue, she’s in no hurry to be shattered.

“If you do what you’re supposed to, you might stay here with us forever,” says Yellow. “You’re good at your job.”

“Of course I am,” says Pearl. “That isn’t the point.”

“We’re concerned for you,” Blue says.

Yellow scuffs her foot on the floor tile. “It’s dangerous talk. Don’t you think you’ve become a bit extreme in your views?”

“Yes, I have,” says Pearl. She can literally perceive the oppression permeating their conversation. “It’s an extreme situation.”

“Fair enough,” Yellow tells her. “I hope you don’t die, though.”

Pearl doesn’t press her revelation after that. It’s pleasant to stand beside the two of them again and see them well, if not eye-to-eye. Both of Pearl’s friends wave to her when it’s time to go, the quietest flick of fingers.

“Please be careful,” Blue says to her.

“See you soon,” Yellow whispers.

Pearl’s gem contains a growing selection of both weapons and objects, mostly of the planet Earth. Plants, tools, textiles. Art. Seashells and stones. Many are gifts from Rose. A few come to her by way of the human beings they intermittently converse with, and others are things Pearl’s found for herself. She starts organizing items by category, but at this rate, alphabetization may make more sense. Some of it is trash. But almost all of it has a story, and Pearl suffers increasing attachment to her planetside memories. She has a newfound appreciation for earthiness. For now her collection stays.

All their meetings with the diamonds come to nothing. They make things worse with the zoo. Yellow visits the moon base alongside her diamond, who criticizes Pink‘s distractibility. Rose tells Pearl about her most horrible idea yet and the Crystal Gems commence. Pearl thinks Rose, as in Pink, has finally lost what little sense she once had, and if Rose keeps seeking trouble like this she’s just asking for White’s hand to come down. Pearl keeps her opinion to herself. She narrows her focus to Rose and Rose alone, with Pink on the periphery. They sabotage Pink’s own development sites and terrorize her gems in small doses. Rose thinks they can inconvenience the other diamonds away. She lacks Pearl’s skill yet, but having Rose at her back is a reassurance. Pearl can always depend on the other gem’s overwhelming strength, and in a worst-case scenario, possibly her rank. Rose’s ability to regulate her descent comes in handy as well. Still, Pearl is wary of the exercise. White’s pearl’s arm is on her mind. If they’re caught, Pearl will seriously be killed. If not worse. She doesn’t think Rose will get off easy, but she equally doesn’t expect the diamonds will execute Pink after keeping her around for so long. If they need somewhere else to hold her, there’s already a cell.

After Pearl breaks two swords on an amethyst’s axe she anxiously resolves to steal something more durable. Her weapons hold up fine in practice, but even with care they won’t last forever. If Rose is serious about fighting gems, then Pearl had better be too. She’s thus far avoided taking anything too valuable so as not to invite suspicion, but Pearl hasn’t spent enough time learning other arms yet for her comfort. She slips over to Homeworld while Pink’s out on some argument with Blue or Yellow Diamond. 

She visits one of Yellow Diamond’s weapons storages. Pearl swipes a high-quality blade. A quartet of ruby guards catch her in the act and Pearl, now accustomed to guerrilla reflex, makes a run for it. They chase her through the catwalks. Pearl tries the same blending-in trick she used on the agate. She sneaks out of sight and takes up position next to the first pearls she sees, a yellow-vested gem with her pearl on her chest and one default customization like Pearl, sole decoration a blue ribbon in her hair. Pearl’s earlier misadventures must sabotage her here; the rubies pause at the sight of two default pearls and demand to know whose they are.

“Er, Demantoid -” Too rattled to make something up, Pearl gives them the serial number of the peridot technician whose logs she’d grown attached to, the only gem designation Pearl can recite off the top of her head. She knows better than to mention Pink.

Pearl’s not sure it will work, but the ruby just looks at her fellows and shrugs. “That sound right to you guys?”

“Oh yeah, sure!”

“They got numbers. I think we’re done here.”

After the rubies have left, both pearls step back from Pearl and give her a hard look. The yellow one keeps her mouth shut, eyeing Pearl up and down as though searching for a distinguishing feature. Well, she is a bit off-color. The defaulted one is beside herself with excitement. Apparently Pearl’s newfound reputation precedes her. Pearl pokes her head around the corner. No sign of guards. Good.

“It’s you! The renegade pearl!” The default pearl appears at her side, and Pearl does a double-take at the sight of her own face flushed with such unabashed entertainment. “Did you really vandalize a holly blue agate’s entire armory?”

“Mm,” Pearl says, thinking of the fastest way to an exit. “No, I’m not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” says the default.

“It’s obvious. Look how you move around,” the yellow one pipes up.

The surprise is enough to distract Pearl. She looks down at her dress. She frowns at the yellow pearl. “Really? What about the way I move?”

The other gem just looks at her. Pearl settles on an escape route. She’d better go before this gets any more awkward. The yellow pearl steps out of her way.

The default pearl claps her palms together. “I knew it! You _are_ her!”

Pearl rubs at her head. “No, no,” she says. A terrible, delightful idea manifests. She knows just the trick. “You’ve got the wrong gem!”

The stranger doesn’t rise to her bait a second time. She makes a face. Pearl grins.

“Just tell me I’m right,” says the pearl. “We helped you hide from the guards.”

“I can’t be,” says Pearl, pointing at the other pearl’s ribbon. “I can’t be, because today _you’re_ the renegade pearl.”

She conjures a mirror copy of the accessory onto her own head. By the time the pearl figures out what she’s pointing at, Pearl is in motion. She almost makes it around the corner home-free, but a hand shaped exactly like hers closes around Pearl’s wrist. Pearl allows it to delay her. She glances back.

The other gem’s gaze burns into Pearl. “Is it true?”

She doesn’t have to say what. Pearl withdraws her arm. She bares her teeth in mischief. “Of course it is.”

They don’t catch her again. 

Pink Diamond greets Pearl when she returns to the moon base and they talk across maps of Pink’s settlements. They watch over their world through the crystal.

“It looks too small,” Rose says. Pearl agrees with her. Earth’s inestimable vitality pales from the moon. She thinks about gems, draining down planets, retaining no histories save a bone-dry series of numbers and log dates. Not even their own.

“The humans would never believe this,” Pearl says.

“Oh, they know,” Rose corrects her. “Most of them, anyway. They’re not happy with my invasion either. They sabotage what they can. But they do like to talk about the stars.”

As Pearl does. And Rose. They spend many a surface evening stargazing. She used to prefer it from up here, what feels like a long time ago. She shouldn’t assume so little of Rose’s organics, even if she finds them difficult to understand. She knows better now and should act like it. She wonders if Rose ever has the full story regarding humans. She never knows what’s fantasy with Rose.

Fantasy pulls her back into bouts with Holo-pearl, workshopping her character’s old story. As pieces of the whole thing come together, Pearl unsettles herself at her exercise. The clever pearl‘s clueless demantoid is gone for long hours, bothering her bismuths. The pearl is generic and knows her way around. The pearl is an unwanted gift. Her demantoid hasn’t bothered to set name or customization options, so if the pearl decides to lie about who she belongs to, there’ll be no way of tracing her back. The demantoid has dominion over a colony and regularly visits sites across the planet, which means her pearl knows the ins and outs of the colony structures. She knows all of the gems and can open any transport schedule. If necessary, she can change her shape. The demantoid is recently disgraced by a minor failure, having no inner circle to speak of, so the pearl carries secrets with which to barter. The demantoid has always had other gems perform for her, and the colony runs like clockwork without the demantoid’s intervention, so she’ll never expect one to behave in a manner it’s not meant to. Helming the demantoid’s ship on her frequent ferries from moon to moon has taught the pearl to navigate. The circumstances of the pearl’s predestination add up in such a way that a no-name pearl stationed thanklessly atop a tiny no-name territory at the distant edge of the empire can, with an idea, if she so chooses, slip right off that edge and vanish into the infinite void of outer space.

Pearl realizes in organizing the story that she can do this, too. Really. It’s not only possible and well within Pearl’s ability but will be easy, knowing Pink Diamond. She probably won’t even go looking. Pearl can finally escape her dangerous proximity to Pink, who doesn’t want her anyway and might have gotten rid of Pearl long ago were White’s methods less depraved. She can shed the circumscribed role she resents. But it will also mean leaving behind Rose, the only person who’s ever known Pearl and enjoyed her company without preconception. She’ll have no one to do it for. Pearl imagines exploring the limitless cosmos, roaming wherever she pleases. But where to? The only world outside of the empire Pearl can imagine is Earth, and that too is because of Rose. Not for the first time she aches for Rose to be real. They could have traveled the stars together.

Pearl neglects to hold back in practice and accidentally knocks Rose on her behind. She laughs once, unthinking, at the expression on Rose’s face. Pearl remembers too late that Rose is really Pink Diamond, and Pearl’s _trying_ to be more careful now, and familiar terror washes through her gem. Rose is once again delighted. She looks up at Pearl wide-eyed and openmouthed, dying to know how she did it. Pearl’s breast swells with arrogance. Her plans to run escalate. She dives into technicians’ diaries once more for emergency repair lessons. Holo-pearl is too often joined by a phantom of Rose. The escape fantasy’s cast of characters broadens - individuals Pearl’s met or made up. She fills the demantoid’s fastest ship with other gems and they find somewhere safe to live. They build a spire of their own to think in. Everyone speaks to one another like she and Rose do. They design something better together. They make it. Pearl can be Rose’s friend.

Pearl goes home for a new sword. She chances a return to the armory she visited the first time. There’s no sign of the holly blue agate. Pearl recognizes the bored carnelian tossing a ball with two of her fellows. They give her no trouble. On her way out, Pearl pauses by the warp.

“Any good stories?” Pearl says to the rude wall.

The wall looks her over before answering. “You hear the news about Blue Diamond?”

Oh? This will be interesting. Pearl shakes her head.

“She’s visiting Pink Diamond’s new colony to deal with the rebels. They’ve just ordered a sapphire with a full entourage.”

“What rebels?” Pearl says, feigning ignorance.

“You know, Rose Quartz.”

Pearl frowns to herself.

“Thanks for stopping to talk,” says the wall. “It gets lonely up here.”

“I can relate,” she says. 

“Most gems don’t.”

She’s late. Rose will be wondering where she is. Pearl makes for the warp.

“Wait,” says the lonely wall. Pearl turns around. “You might like this – have you heard of the renegade pearl?”

There we go. Pearl beams. She wants to hear it; let Rose wonder. “No, I haven’t.” 

“It’s a default who claims to belong to nobody. No one can figure out who’s she is. There’s rumors of her running wild all over Homeworld.”

Oh. She’s been hoping her more violent escapades on Earth will make it back home. Well, it’s still funny. Pearl feigns wide-eyed astonishment. “ _Stars!_ What an incredible story!”

“She’s real.”

“Oh my,” says Pearl.

“I’ve seen her,” says the wall gem. She says it like Pearl’s a secret mystery. It’s fantastic.

“How terrifying that must have been!”

“Not really,” says the wall. “She was just an ordinary pearl. You’re all a bit weird.”

The wall mistakes Pearl’s frown of offense and hurriedly digs herself deeper. “The renegade’s nothing like you, though. She’s very impolite.”

“How queer.” 

“Yes. It makes one wonder.”

“Would you ever do it?” Pearl says. The words fall out of her.

“What, wonder?”

“Run away.”

The wall stares at her flabbergasted. “Where to?”

Pearl lifts her hands in a shrug. “Anywhere.”

The wall, to her credit, considers Pearl’s question before composing an answer. “I’m all right. My purpose is staying put, so it’s all the same to me.”

“What if you didn’t have to - stick with your purpose?” Pearl says. “What then?” She knows she’s coming on a bit strong, but for some reason the wall’s reticence is frustrating.

The wall frowns. “What else would I do?”

“I don’t know,” Pearl says, a bit too harshly. She doesn’t know how to express it like Rose does. It just makes sense. Besides, isn’t the point to own the time necessary to figure that part out? “Whatever you like.”

The wall gives the warp a nervous look. “I’d rather be a wall than a shard, y’know.”

“Well, what if you had somewhere else to go?”

“I don’t know,” the wall echoes her. “‘Somewhere else’? What do you mean? Where?”

“Never mind,” says Pearl. “Just idle gossip. I should get back to my post.”

“You better be careful about that kind of thing. I don’t care, but it’s like they say - walls will listen, you know.”

Pearl nods, once. ”Thank you for the news.”

“Sure, any time.” 

“Live well,” she says before taking the warp.

“You too,” says the wall. “Be safe, pearl.”

The wall’s advance notice gives them time to prepare. The sapphire is accompanied by three ruby guards. Pearl can’t be completely certain of their experience, but they come off a bit glossy. She and Rose are cheerful in their insolence. A sapphire’s power doesn’t stand a chance against the two of them acting unpredictably together. Rose hops them to a higher vantage point to scope out their targets, holding Pearl aloft on pure joy. She’s fired up at the thought of getting one over on the other diamond. Pearl peers at the figures below, scattered around Blue Diamond’s palanquin like ants at a decaying beetle. She evaluates their gem-types and probable fighting styles against her rote knowledge. She’ll strike down at least two of the rubies, before they have time to fuse, and discorporate the sapphire next. It occurs to Pearl that what she’s doing is not dissimilar to the sapphire’s own duty. The difference between their predictions is perspective. She remembers the self-absorbed sapphire who’d taken Pearl for someone else. The Crystal Gems’ victory is certain.

Real combat is new to Pearl, but she’s getting used to it. The rubies’ fright when she drives her sword through their physical forms stings. It doesn’t make it as far as her face. Like them, Pearl has perfect clarity about her purpose. In the unlikely event Pearl is bested she recognizes their circumstance as well as her own. She doesn’t blame them, whether or not the rubies know enough to extend to her the same courtesy. The last ruby surprises everyone by lunging for her sapphire. There’s a burst of heat and light.

She and Rose retreat while the gems are distracted.

“Did you see that? Blue ran away!” Rose snorts into Pearl’s hair as they descend. For a moment Pearl’s confused as to how Rose knows Blue, before she remembers the diamonds and her actual reality.

Pearl thinks about the fusion’s face, and those of the gems surrounding her. Every member of the court immediately chose one of two learned responses: contempt for the strange new gem or silent complicity in her disgrace. Pearl is reminded of her brief humiliation at the hands of the holly blue agate. And she and Rose fled, despite the cause for which they‘d interrupted in the first place! This is exactly why things continue as they are. Why the fusion had looked so fearful. Pearl can’t believe she’s seen a ruby and sapphire fuse. In front of Blue Diamond, no less. (A ruby! A sapphire!) An entirely new gem come into being. It’s real, the thing Rose and Pearl have been imagining. They see it with their own eyes. A gem who exists outside of the rules entirely. It’s likely she no longer does, and may never again. Nevertheless, she was there, and they saw her. She’s possible. 

Rose chatters like she does whenever she’s trying to process a novel experience. A surprise fusion, and not only that, but between two different gems! Pearl runs it over in her head too. She’s wondered since watching the quartz soldiers do it, of course she has, but as she doesn’t know any other pearl who’d be willing to chance such a thing she hasn’t ever seriously thought of trying for real. 

It can’t be. Can it?  Rose voices curiosity and Pearl, gripped by her own, rushes to enable it. They tumble into the bushes. Pearl plummets. She doesn’t realize until fusion doesn’t happen how badly she hopes for it. The others had transformed in an instant. The third ruby had simply reached out and in full view of the court, for another’s sake, snatched what Pearl yearns for. Not remotely like Pearl’s crawling, cowardly, two-hundred-year journey to incompleteness. The fusion’s expression as she comes into being sticks in Pearl’s mind. 

She gambles everything already at this crystal gem game, which is constructed around a core of truth that Pearl fully and consciously believes in — their own right to this fictive life on Earth. All for the sake of her worthless purpose. There are better things to die for. Can Pearl claim to stand for what she does while choosing to wager less on it than that ruby?

She wishes she could understand Rose as well as she thinks she understands Pink Diamond. She wants to know why Rose does this. She wants to believe in the person she’s come to know on Earth. She _wants_ to believe the Crystal Gems can be something bigger. Gems need it. They have a right to it. All of it, and each of them, every one. With Pink’s power, they may even pull it off. Even if it’s only one planet. One moon. One spire. Pearl wants to be able to let down that last wall. She wants to _trust_ Rose. Rose just makes it so hard sometimes. Pearl _thinks_ , by now, that Rose may routinely misinterpret Pearl but doesn’t intend to confuse her. She thinks Rose is honest with her almost always, if oblivious to her own power, but if that’s the case Pearl can’t explain why Pink Diamond still pretends so effectively not to be herself. Pearl has to do the same thing out of necessity, and it exhausts her. It may be the way of gems, but it’s no way to live and Pearl’s tired of doing her part to uphold it. She’s been restraining herself, playing things safe, her whole life. Maybe - maybe she wants to act on impulse too. Maybe she wants to be alive on Earth. Maybe she just wants to do what she wants for once. Or what’s right. However long it lasts. The ruby dares it; why not she?

Pearl chooses the leap of faith. She confesses she’s failed in her purpose. She tells Rose she intends to escape from it all. She says she doesn’t want to do it alone.

They fuse.

She’s gone. She’s someone else. It’s not long enough to make sense of, just seconds, a glimpse starward. The feeling of it lingers. When Pearl comes back it’s in realizing she exists again. On Rose’s face Pearl sees an instant of her own emotion. Centuries of joint lawlessness, and they’ve finally broken a rule together.

In the wake of their failed fusion’s nonexistence, Pearl thrums with the leftover vibrancy of admiration and sincere affection. She _knows_ she doesn’t feel either way about Pink Diamond, and while it’s true Pearl harbors a unique warmth for Rose Quartz, _admiration_ is about as far removed from Pearl’s image of her unlikely friend as it gets. By process of elimination, therefore, she knows those feelings aren’t from Pearl’s part in the fusion but the other. By process of elimination, therefore, those feelings are the truth. She experienced them firsthand.

For the first time in her life, Pearl doesn’t regret her risks. She‘s certain her wish can come true. She‘s ready for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [optional listening](https://nekocaseofficial.bandcamp.com/track/man)  
> thank you for reading!


End file.
